Accommodations
by darklydraco
Summary: COMPLETE! 10 years Post-War. A wandless Draco is attacked and severely injured. He struggles to cope and recover with his dignity intact after moving in with Potter. HP/DM slash. Warnings inside. Reviews appreciated.
1. The Hospital

Ten years Post-War. Draco, who has been living without magic, is attacked and severely injured. Potter, a single father, takes him in. HP/DM with a teensy tiny bit of DM/OC.

**Warnings**: Slash, of course. Some implied rape and violence. Also, some pretty realistic treatment of the practical challenges of living with a disability. If you can't take it, move along.

* * *

**Accommodations**

**Part One: The Hospital**

"Is it permanent?" A man's voice asked.

"There's no way to be sure, only time will tell," the Healer started to explain. They were whispering. It was really much too late for visitors. "This kind of curse can cause irreparable damage. But there have been some recent advances, and it's possible that he could make a full recovery."

"How long will it take?"

"There's no way to know. He has made considerable progress already. It could take weeks, or years," she said. The man beside his bed shifted. "Rehabilitation will be lengthy, and demanding, and quite expensive."

"I understand."

Another female voice joined them now, "you don't have to do this. There are… facilities… for people like him." The sneer in her voice was familiar, too. Yes, of course. People like him.

"I know," the man said, sounding impatient now.

Draco tried to keep quiet, pretending to sleep, but the voice was so familiar. He lay frozen in indecision until it was too late, as usual. The man walked out through the curtain, the Healers with him, and Draco was alone again.

He opened his eyes. It was night and the light that filtered through was dim. White curtains hung around his bed, creating a semblance of privacy in the massive room filled with other beds, other patients.

He had been sleeping, or almost sleeping, but now the pain was back again. He shifted his arms and turned his head, and a jolt of fire shot down his spine and radiated out through his legs. He groaned and tried to bite his lip to forget the pain. His right arm was throbbing. Someone on the far side of the room cried out, and the sound rang in his ears. He closed his eyes again, and with his good arm, pulled the covers up over his head, and tried to will the pain away. Tried to sleep.

Whoever the man was, and whatever he was going to do, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

* * *

_Sounds in the darkness. Banging, knocking. Rushing footsteps on the stairs, down the hall, in the room next door. A scream, and something shatters. Panic grips him, his heart is beating so loudly he can barely understand what the voices are shouting. All he thinks is: they're coming, they're coming._

* * *

Draco opened his eyes suddenly and realized he was covered in sweat, gripping the sheets. His jaw was sore, like he'd been clenching it for hours. He looked around and was unsurprised to see three Healers-in-Training standing at the foot of his bed reviewing his chart. Draco knew them by now: the short bubbly one (female), the tall dark one (male), and the quiet one (female).

He reached down tentatively under his sheets and breathed a sigh of relief when he found them dry.

Presently the Healer came in for Morning Rounds: they briefed her, she quizzed them, they examined him, he sneered at them, and then they all left. Their muffled voices carried over from the next patient, behind the next partition.

Draco reached for the urinal hanging off his bed. It looked like a wide-mouthed milk-jug with a handle you could to hook it onto the railings on either side of his bed. He rearranged the sheets, and tried to aim his erection and relax himself enough to piss, as tossing off first was not an option in this setting. It took a considerable amount of willpower, but eventually his bladder emptied and the erection went down.

Now for the truly miserable part. After delaying for as long as he could, he finally sucked it up and pressed the charmed buzzer next to his bed. Moments later Maggie, his grey-haired, bespectacled day-nurse peaked in through Draco's curtain holding a bedpan. Draco nodded reluctantly, and looked away, face reddening already.

She bustled in through the curtains, and pulled them shut behind her. Draco scowled, and she smiled benignly in her middle-aged matronly I've-seen-it-all way. She counted (most of them count): 'one, two, three' and then rolled him over onto his side. A whoosh of cold air as his bare skin was exposed by the open-backed gown. She tucked the bedpan under him and rolled him back over onto it. He winced at the cold metal. It was always so bloody cold. With a wave of her wand the back of the bed raised up for him so that he was almost sitting, and she propped his legs up, knees together and bent, feet parted. Then she left, closing the curtains behind her.

Draco took a deep breath tried to concentrate on evacuating and not on the abject humiliation that threatened to burst out in angry tears every fucking time he had to go through this.

Learning to use a bedpan had proven to be the most humiliating thing Draco had ever done. And that included the humiliation of his trial, of poverty, of wandlessness, of the life he'd been subjected to since then. Nothing in his life until now had prepared him for the utter humiliation of having to use a bloody bedpan. And nothing could possibly be worse, except, perhaps, having to _ask _to use the bedpan. Or confessing that you were through. _Gods_, more than a week of this hell and he still could barely look his nurses in the eye afterwards.

When his night nurse, Philippe, first explained it to him, Draco had been so horrified he refused to go for two days, until he finally messed the bed in his sleep. He woke up to find Philippe firing off cleaning charms and changing the sheets around him with a businesslike efficiency that was somewhat comforting, though only marginally.

He took to accepting it when offered, then, but it was three days before he could bring himself to request it.

Maggie returned when he was finished, leaning the bed back and lifting his knees for him to hold. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried to remember flying. It was the only time he ever permitted himself the luxury of remembering flight.

The cleaning charms burned, then tingled. She vanished the contents with a flick of her wand and set the empty pan under his bed. All in all, he should probably be glad he was here and not in a muggle Hospital where it would probably be much more invasive. He watched her rearrange his legs and cover them with the blanket again. He didn't thank her, although he probably should. He just… couldn't.

Just as she was passing through the curtain, she turned back to him, "You had a visitor late last night. Another Auror. Maybe they caught the bastards," she offered half-heartedly.

Draco smiled ruefully at her. "I doubt it." She chuckled sadly, and left.

In the first day or so, several Aurors had come through, asked him questions, jotted down notes. Draco had refused all other visitors. Not that many had come. Pansy and Blaise had apparently tried at different times, but Draco refused to let anyone he knew see him like this. He had been out of the wizarding world for so many years, and this was no way to reenter it.

The Healers had made a hopeful prognosis but Draco was short on hope. Unfortunately he was still too immobile to actually finish the job his attackers had begun, but with a little luck, he'd manage it soon. He was already collecting the sleeping potion they would sometimes permit him, siphoning it into a single vial that he kept under the mattress. There just wasn't enough, yet.

* * *

_Boots outside his door. Cruel laughter. His door flies open, light from several wands blinding him, terror seizing his limbs. They're here! They're here!_

Draco woke up drenched in sweat, as usual. The three Trainee's were standing at the foot of his bed, as usual. He heard the Healer approaching for morning Rounds. She was talking to someone.

That Auror.

He sounded so familiar. Draco decided to feign sleep on the off chance that it really was someone he knew.

Draco heard the curtains being pulled back, and then closed again, and now he could hear them more clearly. The Auror stood at the edge of the bed and shifted his weight occasionally, as the Healer interviewed the Trainees.

"Spinal-cord damage from a curse; partial mobility in the right arm, full function in the left arm; sensation but no muscle control in the lower limbs; chronic pain at curse sites, at times severe; normal bowel function but limited bladder control," recited the bubbly one. Draco suppressed a wince of shame at the thought that five perfect strangers were standing next to him discussing his bladder control.

"Emergent injuries treated upon arrival?" the Healer prompted.

"Cranial hemorrhaging; multiple compound fractures and breaks to the maxilla, mandible, clavicle, and three ribs; severe damage to the colorectal tissue; a collapsed lung; and multiple organ failure due to severe blood-loss and hypothermia," droned the tall, dark one.

The Auror, whoever he was, made a quiet choking sound.

"He was left to die in the alley behind The Balding Banshee," the Healer added, disgust plainly audible in her voice.

"Yes… I know," came a halting reply. The man sounded much closer now, like he was standing beside the bed. Draco fought the urge to open his eyes.

Then he felt the shock of warm, calloused fingers touching his right hand, and he almost jerked away. The man turned his hand over and ran a single dry fingertip in a circle around his palm, then ghosted over the stumps where the pinky and ring fingers used to be. They were completely healed, now... the scar tissue unnaturally shiny and smooth. The touch sent a burst of something warm and bright shooting up through Draco's arm, and he suppressed a shiver.

"Digital amputation," remarked the quiet one.

"We never could find the fingers," the Healer explained, sounding almost apologetic.

"No, they would've wanted to keep them," the Auror said, like the others before him.

"We've made progress healing the older injuries, too!" the bubbly one added.

"Older… injuries…?" the man asked slowly.

"Oh yes. Breaks in the right ulna and radius, and several ribs, all healed without being properly set. There was also extensive epidermal scarring throughout the torso, and evidence of sexual assault and battery dating back at least five years, not to mention obvious symptoms of PSTD."

"The report doesn't mention…"

"No, of course not!" The Healer's voice cut in harshly. "Why would the mighty Auror office investigate the working conditions of former Death Eaters?"

She curtly excused the Trainees to go and prep the next patient, and then sighed heavily, "forgive my outburst."

"It's understandable," the man answered quietly.

"You will need to sign a considerable amount of paperwork, you understand. And someone will need to stop in and help you set up the necessary accommodation spells. St. Mungo's can provide a chair, although hopefully he won't need it for long. You may also want to transfigure a hospital bed, in which case our accommodations expert can help you."

Draco lay on the bed with his eyes closed, trying to understand what she was saying. A wheelchair… and a bed? What bed? Where? Was he being kicked out of the Hospital? He was pretty sure that treatment was free for wizards but his status after the trial was… complicated.

"You may want to hire a private nurse to check in and monitor his medications, at least for the first two weeks or so, and we can help you with that. Preferably someone familiar with the case and… sympathetic."

'Sympathetic.' Yes… there were plenty of staff who were not. He was lucky to have Maggie and Philippe. On their off-days, it was a crap-shoot whom he would get. Those were the nights he had to suffer through with no pain meds, because he was 'getting what he deserved.'

"Yes, I think that's a good idea, although I'm pretty sure I can manage most of it," he said, his palm covering Draco's almost possessively.

Who _is_ this person? A long-lost relative? Not bloody likely. Draco _had _to know.

The Healer sighed, and said in a soft voice, "I cannot tell you how much I admire your desire to help, and I sincerely believe it would be the best thing for the patient, but it is not too late to change your mind."

"I'm just worried about changing _his_ mind."

"Hmm… yes. Well, all the paperwork is with the legal rep. Good luck, Auror Potter, I daresay you'll need it."

Draco's stomach dropped through the bed and his heart began to race. Potter. Potter was here. Potter was here and seeing him… like this.

Scraping, and clunking, and a grunt told him that Potter had pulled over a chair and sat down. Draco's jaw clenched, but Potter didn't say anything. He just sat there holding Draco's mutilated right hand.

Draco braved a glance through the corner of his half-open eyes. He hadn't seen the man since the trial nearly a decade ago. He had looked thin then, too, but filled with a fierce determination to achieve what he called 'justice.' He'd testified for Draco and his mother. Potter was probably the only reason Draco was alive right now. They had parted on... amicable... terms. Potter had said, 'if you ever need anything, Malfoy, just owl me,' and Draco had considered doing so many, many, many times, but he never could bring himself to do it.

The man next to him was no longer the same boy he'd known in that feverish summer after the War. He looked… older. And even more tired. His hair was as messy as ever, but… were those streaks of grey at his temples? Already? He looked taller, his shoulders broader, but his robes still hung off of him. The red robes of an Auror. How predictable.

"What do you want, Potter?" he said tiredly, turning his head in time to see Potter jump in surprise and release his hand.

"Did you hear everything?" Potter asked.

"Yes."

Potter sighed heavily. "Then you already know."

"I've been saved by you enough to last me a lifetime," Draco answered, crossing his arms. The gesture was less effective than it had once been, now that his right hand hung limp from the wrist.

Potter sighed again, "Let's talk about it tonight, ok?" He stood up clumsily and left.

* * *

Philippe's shift started after dinner. He came in smirking with his hands behind his back and Draco rolled his eyes and pretended not to care. But Philippe's eyes glinted mischievously in his dark face, and finally Draco relented, and held out his hand.

Pudding!

"I pilfered from the batty old broad by the window," he said, the words rolling off his tongue like butter in his West Indies accent.

"Swine," Draco exclaimed, pretending outrage.

"Ungrateful git," he retorted. Draco smirked, and reached for a spoon.

Philippe was younger than Draco, but he couldn't be sure by how much. Probably about least five years or so. He looked even younger than that, though, his dark skin glowed and his perfect white teeth and pink tongue flashed when he talked, smiled. He filled out his nurse's uniform gracefully and Draco had taken a while to overcome the envy he still felt sometimes watching this young, whole, perfect man. Sometimes the contrast in their appearances seemed little more than a cruel mockery of the contrast between sickness and health.

He was just helping Draco get changed for the night, nimble fingers unknotting the old robe, brushing lightly against the scarred skin on Draco's back as he lay on his side, when a cough sounded from outside the curtain.

"Malfoy, are you decent?"

Draco almost laughed at the absurdity of anyone, even Potter, respecting his privacy at this point. Still he struggled to get into his new gown and cover his useless legs with a blanket before nodding to Philippe to open the curtain.

Potter walked in looking tired and impatient, and before Draco could come up with a suitably dismissive greeting, he started talking.

"Listen, I know you're not happy about this but will you hear me out, please?"

Draco huffed and turned away. Potter sighed.

"I would have come earlier, but you wouldn't take social calls and Percy is a prick and wouldn't put me on the case until two days ago. I've been reading the case file since then," he paused to pinch his nose above his glasses and rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "Of course, they've made no progress," he said, and Draco was surprised to hear something like bitterness in Potter's voice, as though he expected no better.

"Well now that the Boy Wonder is on the case, I'm sure it'll wrap up neatly," Draco drawled.

Potter shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know. But… look, I know you don't have anywhere else to go. So either you come with me willingly, or I take you into protective custody."

"What? Why?"

"Because you're a material witness in an ongoing case…" he paused, and sought out Draco eyes, before adding, "and you're going to cooperate in order to avoid being charged with solicitation."

"What!" Draco felt his face growing hot and he shot at nervous glance at Philippe who was fiddling with the bedding and trying to pretend that he was not listening. His eyes had grown wide, but he didn't look up.

"That's what they've cooked up on you, and unless you fancy your chances in court again, you should take the offer."

Draco tried to hide the panic behind a sneer, but he was probably failing miserably, because Potter simply looked at him, the edges of his lips quirking, and said, "I'll be back in the morning to pick you up."

Potter nodded to Philippe, who followed him out, casting Draco an apologetic look.

Philippe came back to deliver a sleeping draught an hour later. "You should consider it, Draco," he said. Draco barely caught his eyes, but he was relieved that the man had decided to ignore the implications of what had come to light earlier.

"Potter hates me," Draco protested.

"He testified for you. Now he's offering to take you into his home. Why would he do that if he hated you?"

"Pity," Draco confessed. "The last thing I need is another person to hate and pity me."

"But think about it: in a house with all the accommodation charms set up, you'd have much more freedom. More independence."

"How? How can I possibly? I can't bloody walk!"

"No, but you could use a chair."

"Great," he rolled his eyes.

Philippe seemed to be thinking for a minute, and then he said, "How about this: no more bedpans."

"What…?" Draco felt his eyes going wide, "How?" he asked, swallowing his embarrassment with enormous difficulty.

Philippe shrugged, "Simple. You have a chair to get around, and support bars beside the toilet, charmed to make you light enough for your arms to support you. You don't even need a wand."

Draco stared at him. Philippe placed a hand on his shoulder, "We don't have the staff or equipment to really facilitate rehabilitation, Draco. And if he isn't bluffing about the charges, then you could be looking at fines, or even prison, and that would be much worse than this. You should take him up on the offer. It might be your best option."

More like my only option, Draco reflected bitterly. He certainly didn't have the money to pay for a defense lawyer. Much less private rehab. And Potter wasn't kidding, Draco really had no place else to go. He just wished he knew why Potter was doing it. And how he was supposed to manage living with him without dying of bitterness and regret.

"Will you come?" he blurted out, before he could stop himself. Philippe cocked his head and looked at him for a moment, and Draco wished the sheets would just swallow him up right now for being so bloody needy. "I mean, for check ups," he added.

"You know, he asked me. I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it, actually. Thought you might rather be alone with him."

"Why would I want that?" Draco asked a little too quickly.

"I thought… you two… didn't you used to…?" he trailed off, looking flustered.

"Used to what?"

"I thought there might have been a… history… between you, you know. The way he looks at you..."

Draco shook his head. "No, we hated each other in school. There was a time, right after the war, when I thought maybe there could have been…. but we lost touch," Draco sighed. There probably had never really been a chance, but he liked to imagine it, sometimes, when he was feeling particularly masochistic. "Anyway Potter is a straight-arrow Auror now on his way to Department Head. Probably already married, too."

Philippe grinned. "Well, ok. Gods know I need the extra money," he chuckled, and Draco chuckled, too. He could understand that now, what it was like picking up extra shifts whenever possible.

"Thanks," he said, swallowing the sleeping draught and steeling himself for the nightmares he knew would come.


	2. Grimmauld Place

**Part Two: Grimmauld Place**

_Insane cackling echoes off the cold stones hall. A girl is screaming, pleading. And Bella just laughs as she carves the letters into pale flesh… cruel laughter and screaming…_

* * *

Maggie came in to change his wet sheets in the morning. Two nights in a row he'd managed to stay dry, but after everything that happened yesterday, the setback was probably to be expected.

"Don't worry yourself over it," she clucked as she replaced the sheets and rolled him over to position the bedpan. Draco winced at the cold. Anything, even living with Potter, would be worth never having to go through this again, he thought.

Draco had almost convinced himself that Potter had changed his mind when they came to remove his lunch tray. He was vaguely surprised to find himself both relieved and disappointed.

Until he heard a cough outside the curtain.

"Come in, for gods' sakes, it's not like I can stop you."

Potter strolled through the curtain in his oversized robes and looked at him. "Are you ready?"

Draco raised an eyebrow at him and looked pointedly at his hospital gown. "Sorry, I'll just pick out something from my wardrobe that wasn't burned down when my flat was raided."

Potter looked at him with something bordering on amusement, then pulled out and unshrunk a cloth shopping back and laid it on his lap. Draco stared at the bag suspiciously until Potter sighed and pulled out the contents. A simple, but elegant black robe, black trousers, a nice white collared shirt with… mother of pearl buttons and French cuffs?… Draco raised an eyebrow and Potter scowled at him and threw down the last item: green silk underpants. "Malkin had your measurements from before the trial, and I didn't think you'd changed much."

"A lot has changed since then, Potter," he answered bitterly.

"You still look the same to me," Potter answered quietly.

Draco laughed bitterly, and ran a hand across the short stubble that had once been long, sleek blond hair, carefully avoiding the still-swollen scar that ran the length from his right eye and curving around to the back of his right ear.

Potter frowned and stuck his hands in his pocket, looking suddenly much more like his awkward teenage self. "Um… look… do you need help, or anything?"

"No, no, I'll just hop right up and throw these on myself," Draco drawled, before pushing the charmed buzzer next to his bed. Maggie popped in shortly thereafter, gave Potter a stern look before Potter blushed and ducked out through the curtains.

"Floo us if you need anything, Dearie," she said as she untied the back of his gown and handed him the shirt to slip on. Sleeves he could manage, but buttons were murder. She uncovered his feet to slip on the underpants, and he pulled them up under the blanket. The preservation of his privacy like that seemed almost laughable to him, but he was grateful. She helped him sit up by moving the bed until he was almost upright, then moving around to support him with one arm while reaching out to move his legs over the side of the bed. He found he could hold himself upright, legs dangling over the edge of the bed, if he used the muscles in his back and stomach. She slipped the trousers up his legs until they reached the knee, then promptly placed his arms around her neck and lifted him up off the bed, hands reaching down to pull the trousers up to his hips, before setting him back down.

Draco felt a bit like a rag-doll, and it was disconcerting. But at least he could button and zip his own trousers, and pull on the black robe by himself. She left to get the chair and Draco sat there on the edge of the bed, dressed in clothes for the first time in a long, long time.

If he focused on the ground just a few inches from the tips of his dangling toes, he could almost convince himself that he could get up, and stand up. So simple. He would push off from the bed, and straighten his legs, and flatten his feet as they touched the cold floor, and stand up. And walk away. So simple. He'd done it a million times. Just push off and stand.

He must have gotten carried away because the next moment he felt something flat and hard colliding with his face with a loud whack, and then the sound of footsteps beating against the floor, and a muffled, "Malfoy." He barely noticed the tears streaming down his face when two strong arms rolled him over, tucking under his arms and knees, and lifted him up like a bloody _child_ and set him back onto the bed. He wanted to roll away, but of course he couldn't, so he chose instead to grit his teeth, wipe the tears with his sleeve, and glare vehemently into the space in front of him and absolutely not look at Potter.

Maggie rushed in a second later, rolling his chair. "Mr. Malfoy, are you alright?" she bustled and scanned and fussed, and Draco tried to still the impulse to curse at her and send her away. If he did that, he'd be alone with Potter again.

At length she determined he was unharmed, and propped him back up to sit. Potter moved incrementally closer, and Draco tried to contain the indignation.

Then Maggie brought the chair to stand next to his bed. It looked like an ancient wooden armchair, much like the one his father had kept in front of the desk in his study when Draco was a child. It was made of some kind of dark, elegantly carved wood. The back was tall and narrow, and the seat, back, and arms were cushioned in red velvet. It entirely inconspicuous except for the narrow rubber wheels with massive spokes that were attached to either side.

Draco stared at it for a moment, then noticed Potter flicking his wand out of the corner of his eye, and suddenly the cushions were a dark forest green. He wasn't sure how to react to that, so he just remained silent.

Potter stood back and secured the chair as Maggie moved forward to wrap Draco's arms around her shoulders and lift him up to transfer him to the chair. He was shocked at the swiftness and strength hidden in her frumpy, middle-aged frame.

Once seated, he allowed his fingers to glide over the green velvet cushioning, feeling the resistance as he brushed against the grain. Maggie retrieved a hospital blanket, purple with the St. Mungo's crest, and laid it over his lap. I look like a fucking invalid, Draco thought bitterly. Thank gods he hadn't looked into a mirror since the assault, he didn't think his fragile pride could handle it.

Draco grasped her hand when she hugged him goodbye, but he was lost for words. Potter thanked her, shook her hand, and pushed them out toward the lobby. Heads turned, some to gawk at Potter, others to glare at Draco. He closed his eyes and held his head high.

"Shit, I almost forgot!" Potter exclaimed and reached into his robes to pull out a pair of grey argyle socks and a pair of black tassled loafers. Then he bent down on one knee in front of the chair, blushing for some reason, as he bunched one of the socks and reached out to grasp a cold white foot to slip it on. The soft material warmed Draco toes, which were always cold now from so little movement. The loafers slipped on easily, like they had been worn in already.

"Sorry, shoes never really unshrink quite right," Potter mumbled, standing up again and putting his hands back into his robes like a nervous teenager. Draco raised an eyebrow.

"They're mine. I had a hunch we'd wear the same shoe size and I haven't have time visit Fra Lippo's… but I will. I'm sure you don't want to wear mine…"

"I'll hardly need to wear any, Potter," Draco answered, thoroughly confused by this entire bizarre exchange. Potter returned to pushing him.

"Would you like to go out for a bit, or would you rather just floo home?" he asked from above and behind.

"I don't have a home."

"So, walk then?"

"Can't," Draco retorted, indulging his petulance. Potter stilled, probably deciding whether he was going to take the bait.

"Alright, floo it is," he said.

Draco was convinced he would fall out of the chair in the floo. He'd never known you could floo in furniture, but apparently there was a way navigate wheelchair accessible networks. They rolled out of a hearth in a dark sitting room in what was apparently Potter's house. It was large and appeared ancient: not at all what he would have expected of Potter.

"This is the Black Family house," he said by way of explanation when they approached the stairs.

"How…?" Draco asked, frowning.

"My godfather, Sirius Black." Oh. Right. Cousin Sirius.

They were at the foot of the stairs now, and Potter stepped up to demonstrate the charm.

"You park the chair at the bottom step, see? It's been transfigured to be large enough to fit the chair."

Draco moved the chair forward by rolling the wheels.

Now you push the charmed button, and the staircase will simply," and here he pushed the button, "carry you up!"

The entire staircase rolled like a muggle escalator, and in no time Draco was rolling off on the upper landing. He struggled to suppress a smile. Potter took the stairs two at a time to meet him.

"Your suite is through there," he pointed, indicating a door to the left. Draco rolled up and reached to turn the knob, then pushed the door open with the chair as he rolled. His fingers kept getting stuck in the spokes and it slowed him down but he refused to ask for help if he didn't need it.

The room was… comfortable. There was a desk, a chest of drawers, a large four-poster bed, with little rails on either side like the hospital beds had, with a charmed row of little buttons. The walls were a soft cream, which offset the dark-wood furniture nicely. The comforter and hangings were a rich green. The rug, also predominantly green, featured distinctly middle-eastern geometric patterns. The drapes, a solid green, had a faint silver embroidery along the hem which matched the bed hangings. It was quite… tasteful. Certainly a step up from the last several years of Draco's life, though not quite worthy of the Manor, of course.

He looked at Potter to see he was watching Draco nervously. Draco nodded his reluctant approval and Potter let out a sigh of relief.

"If the bed is too tall, just tell me and I'll lower it again. The furniture wards in this place are quite nasty but it's doable if you tell me what you want. This bed belonged to Sirius parents, I think. Anyway, it's like a million years old and if you don't like it, we'll get a better one, ok?"

"It's very… Slytherin…" was all Draco could think to say. For some reason Potter grinned at that.

"Something like twenty generations of Slytherins lived here… it wasn't hard to put together."

He moved to another door and opened it, and Draco followed him in. "This is your bathroom. The rails are all spelled to make you lighter. If we need to make any other changes just let me know. The wards are…"

"Nasty," Draco finished, nodding.

The bathroom was immaculately white, and large. The toilet sat in one corner, raised higher than Draco would have expected, and there were rails on three sides. He'd have to figure out have to use them at some point. It looked… complicated.

The sink and counter were lowered to a height that he could use while in the chair. Towels hook and cabinets hung at a similarly low height.

But the strangest thing was the shower. A tiled space at the back with no wall or other barrier separating it from the rest of the room. A small white chair, almost like a lawn chair, stood right in the middle. A showerhead and faucets that would be waist height for someone standing, jutted out at the back.

Potter shifted behind him and started talking again, "so, um, this is your bathroom but all the loos in the house have had bars installed and I'm working on getting the sink-heights to be adjustable. But I think your chair will actually raise up a bit, too."

"You did all this… in one day?" he asked before he would stop himself.

"Three days," Potter answered, a smirk on his face. "I still had a lot of construction contacts from back when we gutted the place to make it liveable. Still run into the occasional boggart, though, even after all this time." He stilled, and seemed to be thinking. "The house is big enough that you don't have to run into me if you don't want. There's a library downstairs, and a kitchen down another flight. I know the stairs are a hassle but they are all spelled so you shouldn't have any trouble getting around."

Draco was still staring at the shower.

"I didn't know if you would want a shower or a bath tub," he said, almost apologetically. When Draco made no comment, Potter went on, "it was sort of a rush job and I figured you would rather this because then you'd have more independence."

A rush of something far beyond gratitude overcame Draco at the moment and he closed his eyes, waiting for it to pass.

Potter misread him, though, of course, and blathered on. "But you can always use the guest bath down the hall if you want. I'm sure the nurse will help and… I'll help… if you want… or not…"

Draco turned to see Potter standing with his hands in his pockets again, and the sight was almost comical.

"No, no this is… good. I think… I think I'd like to have a shower."

Potter stood awkwardly for a moment, then moved to leave, then doubled back to ask, "do you… um… need help? You know, the first time…?"

"I think I'll manage," Draco drawled, and Potter nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

Almost instantly Draco wished he'd asked for help. He couldn't cast a waterproof charm on the chair, or levitate himself, which is probably what most Wizards in his position would do. Luckily the towel rack was low on the wall, and the floor was flat. Ok, this isn't impossible. It's designed for cripples, and Draco was a cripple. He could do this.

He wheeled the chair into the shower and kicked the wheel lock. Then he lifted himself up using the arms of the chair, and stared. Fuck. How in the hell is he supposed to get into that chair from here?

Ten minutes later, he gave up. He would never manage to get his shirt unbuttoned anyway. He'd have to wait for Philippe.

He wheeled himself out of the room and took the charmed stairs down to the kitchen in search of non-Hospital food. He stopped when he reached the doorway, though, because he heard voices.

"He's got nowhere else to go," he heard Potter saying. "What was I supposed to do? I was so caught up with the courts and custody paperwork after the War, and he just disappeared into Muggle London. Now he's back..."

"So you arrest him?" a female voice answered, sounding incredulous.

"Protective custody. Which he _needs_. It was bloody lucky we found him in time... he could have died."

Draco shuddered. That much was true.

"And yet, that is not why you brought him here," came another voice and Draco was pretty sure it belonged to Ron Weasley.

"He saved my life."

"Yeah, and you saved his twice. And you testified for him. If anything, he owes you," the Weasel countered.

"Well then I owe it to the memory of his mother."

"Ok, sure. Let's all just keep pretending, then, shall we?" the Weasel said, sounding exasperated.

Draco frowned, unable to follow the conversation, but feeling increasingly nervous.

"Look, it doesn't matter. He's here. He still hates me. He'll probably kill me in my sleep, and if he doesn't he'll just leave the second he recovers," Potter said, sounding miserable.

"He might not recover," added the Weasel cheerfully. Prick.

There was a long silence, and then the female voice spoke again, "I hope it works out." Draco was pretty sure this must be Potter's wife, Ginervra Weasley, although he couldn't recall ever hearing that they'd finally made it official.

"Thanks," Potter replied in a weak sort of voice.

Then the scraping and clattering woke him and his turned around and went back up the charmed stairs. He listened from the door of his room as they strolled out into the living room to exchange goodbyes. Then, to Draco's surprise, both of the Weasleys left.

Potter came up the stairs and Draco quickly wheeled himself back from the open door. Potter knocked on the doorframe, stepping in and looking at him curiously. "You didn't…?"

"I changed my mind," Draco said simply, looking away.

Potter didn't respond. Instead he closed the bedroom door and, without saying anything, wheeled Draco into the bathroom and set the chair next to the shower. He knelt down and removed the shoes, and socks. Draco considered protesting, but in the end decided to tug at the sleeves of his robes and remove them. Potter took them from him and folded them neatly on a little stool against the wall. Draco tried valiantly to undo the buttons of his shirt with one hand until Potter placed his hands over Draco's and stilled them, before taking over, and helping him to slip it off. Finally, Draco unbuttoned his trousers and managed to push them down, along with his green underpants, off of his bottom and down his legs by lifting himself up one the armrests with his elbows. Potter knelt down and pulled them off of his feet, his eyes averted, and folded them on top of the shirt and robe.

Then before Draco could protest, a pair of strong arms wrapped around his ribs and lifted him up in a strange imitation of standing. Draco wrapped his arms around Potter's shoulders on impulse and out of a sudden fear of falling, and then realized just how very close they were and very naked he was. In a moment of weakness, he dared to breathe in the soft smell of sweat and parchment in Potter's hair, and feel the scratch of stubble against his cheek, before he was released onto the white chair in the middle of the shower. It was cold, of course, and he felt acutely self-conscious, but Potter did not so much as glance at him. Of course not: Draco was so pathetic and so hideous, how could he possibly?

Potter turned on the switch to the shower. Instantly, a cacophony of rushing water echoed from the room and Draco was drenched in scalding hot water. He lay back and allowed the water to beat down on him. The seat was facing the showerhead, so that the water battered his torso and thighs and ran down over the edge of his limp toes. He just sat there, eyes closed, drowning in the sensation, and he barely heard it when Potter left, closing the door behind him.

There was a bar of soap and a washcloth tucked into what looked like a drink holder in one arm of the chair. Draco found he could wash just about everything from a slightly reclined position. His legs were dead weight, but he could lift them easily enough since they were already raised. He let the soap rinse off and closed his eyes again, hoping the hot water would never give out.

Against his better judgment, his thoughts drifted to Potter. He thought about the rough fingers that had brushed over his palm the day before… about the blush on Potter's cheeks when he'd bent down to put his own shoes on Draco's feet, of fingers unbuttoning his shirt, strong arms wrapping around him, the smell of sweat and the brush of a stubbled jaw.

He glanced at the door. It was closed, but probably not locked. He considered for a moment more, and finally gave in, reaching down to stroke himself. He was normally right handed, and it was strange to use his left hand. But gods it had been so bloody long and he needed the release badly. It only took him a few minutes before he was pumping out through his hand and onto the shower floor.

He lay there exhausted for a few more minutes until he was completely limp, and decided he might as well piss while he could, because the prospect of figuring out the bloody railings was too overwhelming right now. He watched the rivulet of yellow run across the floor and circle the drain, shivering pleasantly in his post-orgasmic sensitivity.

He was about to fall asleep in the fog when a knock at the door woke him. A dark face peaked around the door.

"Philippe!"

Philippe came in, turned off the shower, and helped him dry off before wrapping him in a bathrobe, lifting him back into the chair, and rolling him into the bedroom. The bed was littered with clothes.

"Potter said they're for you, and not be a git about it."

Philippe ran a scan with his wand to check Draco's vitals and administered a pain potion. He outright refused to leave any with him, though, offering instead to give them to Potter.

Draco swallowed his pride long enough to ask, and Philippe showed him how to line up the chair next to the toilet and drop the armrest, then slide himself off of one and onto the other using the railings. It was remarkably easy, once he figured out how to drop the armrest. Philippe helped him dress in the same clothes as before, but they decided to dispense with the shoes before descending the stairs.

Potter met them by the floo in the living room, and Philippe handed off the pain potions, made plans to come back in a few days, and issued several instructions. Then he turned to Draco and placed a quick kiss on his cheek before disappearing into the flames.

Draco rolled past Potter without looking to see whatever shocked expression was probably all over his face. He can't be that surprised, if he knew how Draco had spent the last five years.

It was still early evening but Draco returned to his room and got ready for bed. He managed to get out of his clothes and into a nightshirt with little difficulty while lying down. The bed was spelled to respond to a charmed button panel, and that helped. He figured out the toilet, found a toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet, and decided he could manage with the pain potion he'd already taken rather than go asking Potter for more.

Eventually, though, the throbbing in his right hand and the sharpening ache running down his spine and out through his legs was too much to bear, and he was about to swing himself out of the bed when he heard a knock on the door.

Potter peered in a moment later, carrying a tray with what looked like spaghetti and a roll of bread.

"I thought you might be hungry. And you might need this," he said, holding a vial of the pain potion.

Draco nodded and sat back on the bed, using the charmed buttons to help him sit upright. Potter brought him the tray and spelled it to hover at a comfortable height in front of him. And then, for some reason, Potter pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. The bed was already so low to the ground that they were level with each other, and Draco felt suddenly self-conscious as he struggled to feed himself with his left hand. Eleven days and he was still fumbling. He cursed himself when the noodles failed to curl around the prongs the way he wanted them to. Potter didn't notice, or if he did, he didn't say anything.

But when a drop of sauce landed on his chin, Potter reached out and cleaned it off with his thumb, then licked it off. Draco blinked at him, and Potter blushed, and turned away again.

Draco struggled through half of his meal before giving up and setting it aside. He wasn't really that hungry, anyway. Potter stood to take the tray and hand him the vial of potion, which he swallowed promptly.

"So, everything works ok? The charms are holding?" Potter asked.

Draco nodded.

"Good. Well, I'll just put the chair here where you can get it. Oh and…" he reached under the bed and brought out a portable urinal like the one Draco had used in the hospital and hooked it on the rail beside the bed, "they said you'd probably find it easier than getting up all the time. And if you can't manage it, don't worry, it's no bother to clean up, really."

Draco took a deep breath and gritted his teeth, trying desperately to still the urge to blush, or cry, or hit something. Instead, he just nodded stiffly.

"Do you… need anything else?"

Draco shook his head.

"Are you warm enough?"

Draco nodded.

"Ok, well, my room's just across the hall, and I'm a light sleeper so if you need anything, just call for me, ok?"

Draco nodded again, and swallowed the impulse to throw something. Instead he mumbled a quiet, "thank you."

Potter positively beamed at him for just a fraction of a second before schooling his features back to something more like nervous concern. "Goodnight, Malfoy."

The door clicked closed, and Draco pulled the sheet up over his head with his good arm and bit his hand to muffle the sobbing.


	3. Adjustments

**Part Three: Adjustments**

_

* * *

The boots are right outside, and he can see the light through the crack under the door. Draco is frozen, hiding, bloody hiding, and then the door bangs open and the blue wandlight is shining and someone is screaming…_

He jerked awake to the feeling of a warm hand on his shoulder, light from a wand blinding him at first, and he blinked, disoriented, until the face next to him came into view. Potter, looking concerned.

"You were screaming," he said.

"I'm fine," Draco frowned, and pulled the covers over him.

"Ok, then," Potter said quietly, padding across the floor and closing the door behind. Draco took deep, calming breaths and fought the urge to call out again… ask him to come back.

* * *

When next he woke, it was to a dull ache in his back, a raging erection and a desperate urge to pee. Thanking the gods he'd managed not to sleep through that last, he reached out for the little urinal and quickly emptied his bladder.

Next he raised the back of the bed until he was in a seated position, reached out and pulled the chair closer to him, dropped the near armrest, and scooted himself onto the chair. Now to the loo.

It turned out easier than he would have thought, though part of him almost missed the burn and tingle of a good strong cleaning charm. But nothing in his life until then could compare to the feeling when he flushed the toilet and rolled over to the sink to wash his hands. All by himself.

A pang of bitterness shot through him when he recognised how bloody proud he was of something as bloody menial as wiping his own arse… but he swallowed it and permitted himself the luxury of pride for just a moment longer.

Now that his most basic urges had been addressed the nagging ache in his back was quickly sharpening and descending slowly down his useless legs. The throbbing in his right arm was back, too.

He wheeled back into the room in time to hear a knock on the door, so he reached out and turned the handle, then wheeled himself backward to make room for the door as Potter pushed it open.

"Morning," he said, stepped in and looking awkward. "Do you need something for the pain?"

Draco shook his head, although every muscle in his body was screaming for relief. Potter looked at him for a second, and then pulled out a vial and placed in on the bedside table saying, "well, of you need it later, here it is." Draco felt a rush of something like gratitude that Potter was giving him an out, a way to accept without admitting that he needed to.

Draco nodded and turned to the chest of drawers. Potter hovered. "Do you, um… need any help?"

"I'm sure I can manage," Draco answered, trying to contain the drawl.

"Great, well, breakfast is downstairs when you're ready." Draco nodded without turning around, and Potter left, closing the door behind him. As soon as Potter was gone, Draco downed the vial and closed his eyes as the pain slowly receded.

It took Draco nearly an hour to select clothing he was reasonably sure he could put on without the help of legs, a working right hand, or a wand. Potter had chosen a wardrobe that resembled an adult version of what Draco had worn when he was a haughty rich-boy in the wizarding world… the neatly tailored robes and rich fabrics were so far from what he'd been wearing the last several years. It almost hurt to see them now. A surge of bitterness at the familiarity, at the time he'd lost, at everything that he'd lost.

In the end he chose a pair of cotton underpants, some dark grey dress slacks that unfortunately sat just a little too loose on his wasted legs, a ribbed white undershirt, and a soft blue jumper. He even managed to dig out a pair of black woollen socks with a grey and light-blue plaid to match. He decided against robes.

He ran a hand reflexively through the stubble that had once been his hair. It was about two centimetres long now, but the sloping scar was still close to the surface. His chin and jaw were stubbled, too. He hadn't shaved since yesterday morning, and there were no razors, or even mirrors, anywhere in his rooms, as far as he could tell.

When he arrived in the kitchen, Potter was sitting at the table behind the Daily Prophet.

The room appeared to have been completely redone. Along one wall were cooking surfaces, stoves, cupboards, and a large cold-cabinet. The far end of the room was made entirely of glass, and overlooked a backyard with… a swing-set. A rectangular table that looked like it might seat four stood on the wall across from the stove. One of the chairs had been removed.

Draco rolled over to the cold cabinet and found himself a carton of cottage cheese.

"Potter?" He asked, and Potter jumped and looked over.

"Oh, hi!" Potter said, casting him an oddly… approving look which Draco decided was directed entirely at the clothes. "What can I get for you?"

"Just tell me where I can find a bowl and a spoon."

Potter leapt up and pulled out a drawer and Draco selected a spoon. Then Potter reached up to one of the higher shelves and pulled out a bowl.

"I can move some of them down lower, if you like."

"It's fine," Draco said, depositing everything into his lap and rolling over to the table. The table was just a little too high, he thought, but before he could even think about fiddling with the bloody chair, the table shrank down to a perfect height, and all the surrounding chairs with it.

He turned around to look at Potter, who smiled timidly. "Adjustment charm… it senses the chair." He came over and deposited a cup of tea and then, amazingly, prepared it exactly the way Draco liked it at school: lots of milk and just one spoon of sugar. He raised an eyebrow and Potter blushed, and tried to shrug it off, "I remembered."

Draco decided to ignore that odd little detail, and ate, sneaking a look over at the folded Prophet. It'd been years since he'd read one cover to cover like he used to. Potter caught his glance and pushed it over to him. "Still rubbish," he said, dismissively. Draco feigned disinterest as he picked it up and started reading.

An hour later, he was still reading. Potter had cast a warming charm on his tea and gone to shower, or something.

Draco spent the rest of the morning sipping and reading until he had to return to his rooms to use the loo again. By the time he was through, the effort of all that moving around, even with the chair, was finally taking it's toll, and he retreated to his bed and fell asleep.

When he woke the afternoon sun was pouring into through the window, and Draco was vaguely hungry. And he needed to pee. Again. All the bloody potions were speeding up his already fast metabolism. And the curse damage that had impaired his control wasn't helping either.

Eventually he made his way downstairs, and returned to the table to find Potter standing in front of a pot of stew wearing… an apron? Draco rolled over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of pumpkin juice, and without a word Potter deposited a glass on the table, and Draco drank. Gods it had been too long. He gulped the sweet, pulpy juice and poured himself another. Potter came over with his own cup and a plate of cheese, crackers, and grapes and sat down across from him.

Gods it was good to eat real cheese again. Brie and Goat and something lovely and light with dill in it.

"Mammoth cheddar," Potter commented. Draco nodded and took another piece.

They ate in silence for a long time until a sudden crashing noise from somewhere in the front hall made Draco jump and he spilled juice all over his lap. "Shit" he muttered, but Potter simply waved away the mess. When Draco was fully dry again, Potter rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed loudly, then called out,

"Teddy! We are not a herd of Hippogriffs!"

Draco was about ask who the hell Teddy was when a boy of about nine or ten stomped into the kitchen, threw down his bag, and slid into an empty chair. He then pulled the entire plate of cheeses toward himself and began gobbling it down.

Potter sighed again and threw Draco apologetic look, but Draco was too bewildered to even understand what was happening. Potter turned to the boy and said, "Teddy, have you noticed we have a guest?"

The boy, apparently Teddy, looked up at Potter and then over at Draco, and then smiled bashfully, blushing. Oddly, his hair seemed to blush, too, and turned bright pink.

"Malfoy, this is my son Teddy. Teddy, this is Mr. Malfoy."

"Hi Mr. Malfoy!" he said, holding out a hand very formally to Draco. For a moment Draco considered, then opted to shake with his left hand. No need to ruin the boy's appetite.

"Draco is fine," he answered, and Teddy's eyes went wide for a minute before he turned to Potter, and then he just smiled. It was an alarmingly bright, beaming smile that caught Draco completely off guard.

"You're my cousin!" the boy said cheerfully, and then leapt to his feet and gave Draco an awkward, side-ways hug over the arm of the chair. Draco stared at Potter in bewilderment, but Potter was watching the two of them with a strangely… sad… sort of look. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it again and looked directly at Draco.

"His biological parents were Remus Lupin and your cousin, Nymphadora Tonks."

"That explains the…" he waved around the vicinity of Teddy's hair, which was now platinum blond.

"Yes, he's a metamorph, too."

"Is he also a…?" but he didn't finish, because he wasn't sure whether he ought to.

"No. Not heritable."

Draco nodded, then turned to Teddy, "I knew your biological parents," he said. That was all he could honestly say: he'd known them.

"They're dead," Teddy said seriously, looking at Draco, his eyes suddenly turning from blue to silvery grey. "Daddy's parents, too" he turned to Potter, who nodded solemnly.

"And mine," Draco said quietly. Teddy seemed to feel this warranted further physical contact because he immediately embraced Draco again before returning to his seat.

Draco sat in bewilderment for a moment before he could think what to ask next, but Potter pre-empted him.

"I was already his legal guardian. I filed the paperwork the summer after the War. He was just twelve weeks when they finally made it official. That was a hectic summer, between baby-care, and trying to make this place liveable, and child services checking up on me because apparently eighteen year old single fathers aren't all that common, and then the trials and… the funerals."

"I remember," Draco said.

"I know," Potter's eyes looked sad for a moment, before they brightened again. "You were acquitted two days before the adoption paperwork finally went through. It was… one of the best weeks of my life."

"I should have thanked you," Draco said into his teacup.

"You should have owled me," Potter said, his green eyes gazing over at him through messy brown bangs.

Draco felt an ache in his chest that resembled loneliness, and regret, and too many other things he wanted to say but couldn't. Instead he just nodded.

After finishing the entire plate of cheese and grapes, Teddy excused himself and climbed loudly up the stairs to play some sort of muggle videogame.

Potter turned back to Draco, and smiled, "he's a handful."

"You've raised him… by yourself… this whole time?"

"Well, no, Ron and Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys help out a lot with baby-sitting and stuff, but I manage the household, yeah. You would not believe how much laundry a single child can generate."

"Oh," Draco said, because he really had no idea. The thought of Potter doing laundry, or anything so domestic, was strange, but not entirely unpleasant.

"But that's not really what you asked, is it?" Potter said, his voice more quiet now, and a something coiled in Draco's stomach. Daringly, he shook his head.

"Yes, I was single for… some… of that time. And I am single now," Potter answered, green eyes flashing at him through thick lashes.

"Ah." Draco said, and fiddled with his empty teacup. He wanted to ask but… no. There was no way. And even if he was… well… no. Just, no.

Instead, Draco excused himself quietly and went back up to his room. Potter eventually came in and dropped off a pain potion and a muggle-style razor, and said goodnight.

Sunday passed much the same way. Potter woke him from a nightmare. He spent an hour dealing with toilet and teeth and shaving with his left hand and struggling into clothes, then ate a slow breakfast. He slept through most of the day, and joined Potter and Teddy for dinner. Teddy rambled on about the various Weasleys he'd been visiting and evaded questions about his homework. Potter came in to check on him again, and Draco seriously considered asking for help to take another shower, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead he accepted the pain potion and went to sleep.

* * *

_He's on his knees and stripped bare on the cold floor… cold, red eyes are peering at him in the darkness, raising a wand… searing pain shoots down his spine and out through every nerve ending… and he's screaming and screaming…_

_And then he feels a hand on his arm, and he hears Potter speakly softly into his ear, and the screaming dies away..._

_

* * *

_

Monday morning Draco awoke to an unpleasantly cold, wet sensation underneath him, and a loud bellow outside his door,

"Theodore Lupin Potter, if you miss the school bus one more time this semester you can kiss summer Quidditch camp goodbye!"

Then a pounding of feet down the stairs that really did sound like a herd of Hippogriffs, a rushed, "Bye Dad! Love you!" and slam of the front door that seemed to shake the whole house.

A quiet chuckle sounded from the landing outside, and then a gentle knock on his door. Draco felt the panic rising as he reached for the covers to hide the wet sheets just as Potter peaked in through the door.

"Sorry, it's not usually that bad… Well ok, it's usually pretty bad but we're working on it."

"It's fine," Draco said curtly, hoping Potter would go away so he could figure out how to change the sheets without him ever knowing.

But Potter stepped in through the door frowning and asked, "Are you ok? Is it… are you in pain?"

Draco shook his head. He could feel warmth rising into his face and he gritted his teeth and tried to will it away. Potter handed him the pain potion anyway and he swallowed it without a second thought.

But Potter stepped closer, and finally Draco's panic surged and spilled over into, "Just fuck off, Potter, and let me go back to sleep!"

Potter stepped back then and said apologetically, "Ok. Well I have to get to work in the next hour, so… if you want help with the shower, it's got to be soon."

Hmm. He really did need a shower. Especially now. But it wasn't worth the humiliation. Not remotely.

Unfortunately Potter apparently interpreted his silence as confirmation, and swiftly moved to pull away the blanket to reveal pyjama bottoms soaked at the crotch, and a wet patch under his bottom and thighs.

Draco froze, the blush on his face burning his ears, and he absolutely refused to look at Potter. He just clenched his jaw and stared off into the distance and wished the bed would swallow him.

Potter made absolutely no sign at all that he had noticed anything. Instead he lifted Draco up, one arm under his knees and the other under arms, carried him into the bathroom, and placed him on the little chair in the shower. Draco reluctantly pulled off his t-shirt and pyjamas and Potter turned on the water, took the dirty clothes, and left.

Thirty minutes later, he returned in his Auror robes, pushing the chair. He handed Draco a towel, and then the bathrobe, which he tucked under him as he lifted him into the chair before rolling him back into the room.

"Right, well… I'll see you this evening," Potter announced with somewhat forced cheerfulness. "You've got my floo connection, and the Hospital's. Do you need anything else?"

Draco shook his head and moved to the chest of drawers.

As soon as Potter had left the room, Draco clenched his one good fist and beat his stupid bloody useless legs until his arm ached. Then he crawled back into the bed to discover clean, dry sheets. He spent the rest of the day intermittently sobbing and sleeping.

Potter brought him dinner and a pain potion, and apparently chose to ignore the redness in Draco's eyes.

* * *

_They're right outside his door, and Draco is frozen… and then the door slams open, bright, blinding blue wandlight shines through door, and now they're moving in, boots tearing the room apart, and they're so close and he just waits for them, frozen in his cowardice…_

_And then a warm hand grasps his shoulder, and Potter's voice calls to him... and he wants to answer, wants to reach out, and pull him closer... but he retreats into the darkness out of reach..._

_

* * *

_

The next morning Draco was pleased to find scrambled eggs and toast with marmalade. Teddy stomped in breathlessly, shovelled down several large mouthfuls of eggs without even sitting down, gulped his pumpkin juice and a vial of potion Potter handed him, and snatched up three pieces of toast before running out the door yelling, "Bye Dad! Love you! Bye Draco!" and slamming it shut. The house shook.

"He goes to Muggle school?"

"Yes, for now."

"How do you manage the… um…"

Potter frowned, then his face registered comprehension. "Oh, the magic? He takes a mild suppressant. It doesn't fully block it, mind you, so I can't tell you how many _obliviates_ I've had to use, but it keeps in contained unless his emotional state changes, and it wears off in the afternoon."

"A potion?"

"Yes. It's actually one of Snape's formulas. I'd never have trusted it otherwise."

Draco frowned, "How?" and Potter smiled.

"He left me his books, papers and private stores. The bulk of the papers were archived in the War Museum after he was exonerated, but I kept all the good stuff. I'll show you the lab sometime when I'm not rushing out the door," Potter said, standing to go.

Draco realized he was staring when Potter sat back down and looked at him seriously.

"He left you the money because he knew the Ministry would confiscate everything that belonged to Lucius." Draco nodded. That was true. Without Severus' meagre savings he and his mother would never have survived those first years without magic.

Potter went on, "By the time they finally released the rest of it to me, you had already disappeared." He paused… cocking his head to the side, and then seemed to make a decision.

"Hold on," he said, and Draco heard him bolting up the stairs and back down again, and plopping a book in front of him. "This is how I aced 6th-Year potions: it was his. Read the notes, you'll get a laugh."

Then he threw on his Auror robes that were hanging over his chair back and disappeared into the living room and through the floo.

Draco sat staring at the cloth-bound book for another ten minutes before he wheeled himself into the living room, lifted himself onto a cushy-looking armchair, folded his legs under him, and began to read.

And read. And read.

* * *

Wednesday passed much the same way. He wet the bed again, and Potter said nothing, merely lifting him into the shower and changing the sheets. Potter and Teddy left noisily and Draco sat by the fire reading and dozing.

That afternoon, the sound of the floo woke him, and he was pleased to see Philippe stepping out onto the rug.

"Hey, how are you holding up?" he asked as he scanned Draco's vitals examined the scar on his head.

"It's not so bad. The kid is loud but sweet."

"And the wife?" Philippe probed.

"No wife," Draco answered grudgingly.

"Girlfriend?"

"Not at the moment."

"Boyfriend?" he asked with a wicked grin.

"Don't start," Draco rolled his eyes as he turned to go up the stairs. "Anyway it doesn't matter. Maybe, once… but now? I'm just a crippled charity case. That's all. So I'm just going to take the charity, because it's all I have left."

Philippe continued to needle him all the way up into the bedroom, where Draco was obliged to disrobe so he could take a closer look at the damaged legs and the scarring on his back and hand. Draco closed his eyes allowed the warm, strangely familiar hands to glide over his skin, prodding and massaging the wasting muscles of his legs, delicately running over the scars on his back and chest and head. The sensation of skin on skin… even in such a clinical setting… was almost overwhelming after so long without it.

Philippe stopped to take his resting pulse, strong brown fingers wrapping around his pale white wrist, and Draco gazed up into warm brown eyes, and at soft, full lips, and he felt his mouth parting incrementally as Philippe drifted just a little closer, eyes on Draco, pulse forgotten, and when Draco stretched up Philippe bent down to meet him, cupping the back of his head gently and their lips pressed together. Draco gasped at the delicious warmth and reached out to pull him closer. Philippe groaned faintly and pulled him up, strong arms encircling him and a warm wet tongue slipping into his mouth, exploring. He started to feel dizzy with the perfection of it all, his breath becoming shallower already. And then Philippe leaned in and placed his knee onto the bed between Draco's legs and Draco would have given anything at that moment to be able to rut against him. But he didn't have to, Philippe was already pressing into him, the young, warm, wholeness of him threatening to swallow Draco, and he whimpered softly.

And then they both heard Potter's voice calling up the stairs. Philippe jumped away and mumbled and apology before Draco could even say anything. And then Potter was in the doorway, looking at them both, eyes growing first wide, and then narrow. A strange mix of something like surprise, and disappointment, and anger, and maybe… pain?... played itself across his face before he schooled his features into calm. He didn't look Draco in the eye, but he sounded pleasant enough when he asked Philippe to come down and discuss the schedule.

Draco hastily dressed and scooted into his chair. When he reached the living room, Philippe was standing with his hands in his pockets looking extremely young and thoroughly chastised, eyes red, and mumbling something like a thank you. He cast a quick, apologetic look at Draco before disappearing into the floo.

Potter turned to Draco then, but there was none of the malice he'd expected. Instead, there was only… pain? Or was it disgust? Or sadness?

"What is your problem, Potter?" he asked, suddenly defensive.

"There's no problem, Malfoy," he said dejectedly, and started toward the kitchen.

Draco wheeled after him. "Then why did my nurse just leave in tears?"

Potter didn't even turn around when he answered, "Because he's your nurse."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that whatever I just walked in on could be the end of his career!" Potter spun around and yelled.

"Did you threaten him with that?" Draco asked a little hysterically.

"No, I reminded him. He can do whatever he wants on his own time in his own home."

"Oh is that it? You just can't have us under your roof? It's ok to house a Death Eater, but not a bloody poof?"

Potter winced at those words, as though Draco had dealt him a physical blow. His eyes were wide with the pain Draco had seen earlier. He looked like he was just about to say something…

But instead he turned away and gripped the edge of the sink. Then, in almost a whisper, he said, "you don't know anything about me, Malfoy."

"No, I don't," Draco spat, and rolled out of the room with as much dignity as he could.

* * *

Draco avoided Potter entirely the next day. Potter did come in to nudge him awake during a nightmare, but he left immediately without saying a word. And he came back to drop off a pain potion in the morning and presumably to check the sheets, but Draco was already in the shower by then. He was unspeakably grateful that his bladder had decided to cooperate again. He had managed to figure out the shower situation, too, and was able to move around the kitchen without help. He retreated to his room around the time that Potter and Teddy came home. Potter came in looking like a wounded puppy and brought him a dinner tray and a pain potion, but didn't wait for him to finish it. For some reason, the just made Draco feel worse.


	4. Treatment

_retrocirce_: Thank you!

_septemberbeauty13_: Thank you!

_Miss Kandy Whitlock_: Thanks! I've read a lot of younger Teddy's but I wanted him to be older and more independent, and I can imagine Harry being a sort of sentimental and almost indulgent parent after his nightmarish upbringing.

Ok so I haven't given this a good read-through yet so I apologize for the inevitable errors, which I probably won't be able to fix until tomorrow.

* * *

**Part Five: Treatment**

_Some is screaming next door, and the boots are outside his door. And now the door is swinging open with a bang, and the wandlight is blinding him, and they're in the room, looking for him, wood splintering as they blast open the closet door and he stares wide-eyed but he can't see them in the shadows because the wandlight is blinding him… someone grabs him roughly by the arm and pulls him out and then…_

_Another hand, a warm hand grasps his, fingers running softly over his palm, blocking out the pain, replacing the forceful touch with gentle, soothing warmth, and a voice whispers his name… _

* * *

Friday morning Draco woke to the usual bellows about the school bus and the pounding and slamming of Teddy leaving the house. He pretended to sleep when Potter slipped in and dropped off a vial of potion. The house was silent, then, and Draco decided it was safe to get up, dress, and go down to breakfast. The whole business still took him nearly an hour.

When he rolled down into the kitchen, he was surprised to see Potter sitting there in muggle jeans and a brown corduroy jacket open over a red t-shirt, sipping tea.

"Don't you have work?" he asked, before remembering that he wasn't talking to Potter at the moment.

Potter looked up surprised, and shook his head. "Not exactly. You have an appointment at St. Mungo's today," he said.

"And I guess the Golden Boy can take off work whenever he wants, right?"

"Exactly," Potter answered, and Draco, miffed that his bait had failed, decided he wasn't hungry after all. As he rolled out of the kitchen Potter called after him, "we have to leave in twenty minutes," but he didn't answer. Instead he just sat in his room and waited.

They flooed into St. Mungo's together but Draco outright refused to let Potter push his chair, and so their progress up to the Curse Damage floor was slower than it might have been. When they arrived, Maggie came bustling over to embrace him and ask him how he was doing, and was he still in pain, and why hadn't he flooed to check in, and would he like some pudding. Draco answered politely, a little flustered by the attention, and tried to pretend that Potter wasn't standing by, watching him. Maggie seemed to perceive the awkwardness and shot Potter a scowl. Draco smirked, then, and accepted that pudding, after all.

They were greeted by Draco's Healer, who led them into a cordoned space and did a cursory check up with her wand and asked several questions, most of them hideously invasive. Potter excused himself when Draco gave him a pointed stare.

"Pain?" she asked.

"Yes." She jotted that down.

"Improvement?"

"No." She jotted that down.

"Bladder control?" she asked in an impersonal tone.

Draco blushed, and gritted his teeth, and answered, "sometimes."

"Could you be a little more specific?"

"At night…" he started, but the humiliation was absolutely too much, there was no way Draco was going to say anything remotely like 'I wet the bed.' Absolutely not.

She frowned at him, expecting him to continue, and then supplied: "Bladder control during sleep remains an issue?" He nodded. She jotted that down.

"Sexual function?"

"Sorry, what?" Draco asked, convinced he had heard that incorrectly.

"Are you able to function, sexually?" she rephrased, though this was only minimally helpful.

He stared at her.

"Mr. Malfoy, are you able to achieve an erection?"

Draco blushed crimson and blurted, "yes!" as though he felt the need to defend his masculinity from this absurd woman.

"And are you able to achieve orgasm?"

"Of course!" he answered, now convinced that this Healer was having a laugh at his expense.

But no, her tone was as impersonal as ever as she jotted down this down, remarking, "sexually functional. That is good news for your quality of life, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco glared at her with open contempt. How could she possibly talk about his quality of life? What good is it going to do him to be functional without bloody legs? Who cares if he can get off? He might be better off castrated if it would keep him from having to live in unrequited need with no prospect of relief except by his own hand, alone, for the rest of his miserable life, because crippled people do not have sex. Or, rather, people do not have sex with cripples. They pity them, clean up after them, they may even love them, but people are not attracted to them, and they do not sleep with them. Draco was officially in the realm of other creatures that you care for and clean up after, like babies, dogs, and really old people. In other words, people you do not have sex with. In fact, people it's illegal to even want to have sex with.

'Quality of life' my bollocks, he thought bitterly.

He looked up to see that she was watching him with something like pity, and Draco could barely contain the sudden, urgent desire to ram her in the shins with his chair.

She appeared oblivious, though, and scribbled away on her scroll, tapped it with her wand, and handed it to Draco saying, "take this with you down to Patil on Four," before shaking his good hand and wishing him the best of luck.

Potter was standing outside looking lost when Draco wheeled out, but he didn't ask any questions, and simply followed Draco. On the elevator, he handed the scroll to Potter and grudgingly informed him that they were supposed to meet 'Patil,' hoping Potter would know if, as Draco guessed, the Healer in question was in fact one of the Patil twins.

"Yes, Padma. But she does something with Experimental Treatment, I think. Why are we going to see her?"

Draco shrugged, and the elevator dinged.

Patil stood waiting for them in a suspiciously muggle-looking white lab coat. Potter walked up and shook her hand, then hugged her warmly, and asked several questions about various children and relatives, before handing her the scroll and stepping back.

Draco rolled up to her rather warily, but she turned to greet him with an apparently genuine smile, and offered her hand, "Malfoy. It's been a long time."

"Healer Patil," he answered, shaking her hand with his right to gauge her reaction. She took it without faltering, smiled, and said "it's Dr. Patil, actually," as she led them into a nearby room.

The room was white with a wall of mirrors along on side, and light-wood flooring. Free-weights and medicine balls lined the walls on one side, and a stack of rolled up mats stood in a large wicker basket in the corner. Natural light poured in from the open windows on the far wall. In the middle of the room lay a massage table of sorts, although Draco was alarmed to see large leather straps.

"Doctor? You went to Muggle Medical School?"

"Yes, a year after the War. It was a challenge, with a Hogwarts transcript, but it's not unheard of. Three years of med school and another three years specializing in neuro, then two years in Healer training here."

"Neuro?" Potter asked, and Draco was glad he did not have to.

"Neuroscience. I work with spinal cord injuries. The magical medical community has a lot of advantages but we are far behind in our understanding of the brain and nervous system, because we just don't have the funding or manpower for the kind of research that Muggles are doing."

"So, what do you do?" Potter asked.

"Why don't you take a seat, Harry," she said, and summoned two chairs and a little coffee table from the other side of the room, for them to sit around. Potter sat to Draco's right, and Patil sat facing them across the little table, a clipboard materialising out of her white coat.

"I have read your case file back to front, Malfoy, and I have discussed the case with your Healer and the Ethics board, and we believe that we may be able to help you with a course of treatment that is still very experimental, and possibly quite painful, but it may be your best hope."

Potter shifted uncomfortably in his chair and made a small move like he wanted to reach out for Draco's hand, but didn't.

"Please explain what you plan to do," Draco said calmly, although he was growing increasingly nervous.

"Well, traditional magical medicine would require a countercurse, which we cannot provide because we cannot identify the curse that was used, and your memory of the attack remains incomplete, does it not?"

"Yes," he answered. Incomplete, but that didn't stop him from seeing it replayed like it was happening all over again in half of his dreams lately.

"In lieu of a countercurse, we can try to identify and treat the symptoms of the curse. Your condition suggests that the spinal cord was not severed, because you retain sensation in the lower limbs, and yet you do not have muscle control. I believe that the electrical signals are simply scrambled, and that we may be able to realign them, through the use of another curse."

"Wait, what?" Now Potter was on the edge of his seat, looking agitated. "You're going to use a curse to treat him?"

"Not exclusively, no," Patil answered calmly, her posture unfaltering. "We will use a combination of curse-treatments and adapted Muggle physical therapy. And we will have to begin right away. You'll be strapped to the table while I administer the curse, and you will need to repeat treatment again within twenty-four hours."

"What curse?" Potter asked, not a bit appeased.

Here Patil faltered slightly, but she recovered quickly and answered in measured tones, "it's a carefully modified variation of a cruciatus."

"What!" Potter practically yelled. "Are you insane? An Unforgiveable?"

Patil remained calm, though Draco could see by the way she was fidgeting with her clipboard that this outburst, though not unexpected, was alarming. Potter did have quite the temper. She answered him quietly, "It is highly modified." And then turned to Draco, "You have been subjected to cruciatus," she said. It was not a question. She had sat in the front row of the Carrow's seventh-year Dark Arts class when Vincent had crucioedhim until his voice was hoarse.

He nodded mutely.

"This curse will concentrate the attention, or direction, of the magical energy, rather than spreading out all over your body. The pain is intense, I'm told, but the objective it to correctly rewire your nervous system.

"What are the risks?" Potter asked, before Draco could even think that far.

"Primarily, failure. But further damage is also possible, which is why we can only try it a few times. Two, possibly three times is the absolute maximum number of treatments. There will almost definitely be a psychological component, too, so we will need to monitor your dreams very closely."

Potter looked like he was about to say more but Draco cut him off, "Ok. Let's… try."

Potter turned at looked at him nervously, biting his lower lip like he was trying to restrain himself from commenting. Draco momentarily forgot that he was supposed to be mad at Potter, and almost reached out to take his hand, but changed his mind. Why should he comfort Potter, anyway? Draco was the one about to be cruciated.

"This will be painful and invasive, Malfoy. Someone will have to learn to perform this curse for you in your home most likely, if we want to be aggressive and start today, and he or she will need to help with the physical therapy. Do you have someone who can do that for you?" she asked, looking at Draco, and for a moment Draco wasn't quite sure. Potter was already doing more than anyone in their right mind would have expected of him, and they were on shaky terms right now, and he had a kid, after all, and a job, and this sounded like much more work than any one person could possibly be willing to do...

But before he could answer, Potter spoke up, "Yes, he does," and he reached out and grasped Draco's mutilated right hand and held it, almost possessively.

Patil didn't take her eyes off of Draco, though, and asked him, "is that ok will you, Draco?" Her voice was warmer suddenly, and the switch to his given name didn't escape his notice.

"Yes. It's fine," he said quietly, too overwhelmed by everything going on to really process the flood of emotions washing over him.

"Good," Patil nodded, apparently satisfied. "Because we don't know what kind of reaction you will have, I propose we start the treatment by focusing on recovering the use of your hand, first. You are much more likely to recover the use of your hand than your legs, because of the nature of the damage and to size of the curse site. This treatment is really designed for damage of this kind, so I'm optimistic. However, if this works, do not assume you will regain the use of your legs. For all we know the two injuries are from two entire different curses."

Draco nodded. Potter fidgeted.

"Alright then," she said cheerfully as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a packet which she unshrunk into a massive stack of forms. "Sign these."

Nearly an hour later, Draco's left hand, unaccustomed to writing, was hanging sore from the side of his chair. A nurse came in with a gown and conjured a curtain to hang from the ceiling in a circle around the massage table, and offered to help him get changed.

For some reason, Draco sent her away, though, and called for Potter, who stepped bashfully into the curtained space.

"I figure I'd rather keep the list of people who've seen me naked as short as possible these days," Draco said dismissively, and Potter snorted, as he bent down onto one knee to remove Draco's socks while Draco pulled his grey sweater and the shirt underneath, over his head. Draco slipped his arms into the gown sleeves when Potter held it out for him. He fumbled with the buttons on his trousers, though, and Potter reached out, almost nervously, to help. He paused, his hands covering Draco's and looking up until Draco met his eyes.

"I'm nervous," Potter confessed. Draco rolled his eyes to cover the fact that was, too.

Together they managed to get his trousers and pants off and Potter lifted him up onto the table on his side, and began to tie the fiddly little ties. Draco reached reflexively behind him to cover his bottom, even though he felt stupid doing it. But he felt stupid doing almost everything, at the moment.

Potter lifted him up to sit upright and spelled the table to incline for him, and then stood by looking insecure for a while before Patil returned in her lab coat, donning purple gloves.

She spelled the table flat again and together they rolled Draco onto his stomach. The table wiggled underneath him for a few minutes, then solidified such that it matched his form perfectly.

He couldn't see what they were doing, but he could hear Patil issuing wand-waving instructions to Potter, who fidgeted nervously. Then he felt a warm hand between his shoulder-blades, and then a cold leather strap laid across his back, and tightened. And then another, further down, and another, across his buttocks, and two more, to hold down his legs. Cuffs followed, nimble fingers tying the straps, tugging them tight. Panic rose as each extremity was fastened in place, and now Draco's heart was racing.

Finally Patil bent down near his ear and asked, "may we begin?"

He seriously considered bailing at that point, but he didn't want Potter to think he couldn't take it. So he nodded.

First all he felt was a tiny cold prick were the wand tip pressed into his right shoulder, just above the shoulder-blade.

And then: searing, blinding pain shot through his arm from the wand point down to his wrist in an instant, and seemed to pool there. He heard someone screaming and guessed it was he but he couldn't really hear or see or think anything except how the pain was now descending agonizingly slowly, centimetre by centimetre, down into his right hand, further and further, fanning out into the bones and sinews, extending into the knuckles. Slowly, slowly, reaching into the tips of his remaining fingers, blazingly, blindingly hot pain, then pooling in a hateful white-hot fire in the stumps where his lost fingers once were. And then everything went black…

* * *

_He is standing in a dark room, and then a light comes on, and there is his father, sitting in a chair behind a silencing charm, and he looks like he might be praying or whispering something, his eyes reddened and crazed, but averted from the crowd…. The crowd around Draco and his mother, sitting in black in the black room with the bright beam of light shining of his father… and then everything feels cold, and they all know… the dementor is coming…_

_And then a warm hand on his shoulder and arms wrapped around him and he reaches out and clings to them…_

* * *

Draco came to on his back on the table, straps gone, wearing his clothes, with a blanket covering him, and his right hand holding Potter's. Potter was watching him, eyes filled with worry…

Wait.

His right hand… was holding on to Potter's hand. Grasping it. Squeezing it. He pulled free and tried to move his three remaining fingers and… they moved. They were stiff and it hurt, but they moved! He jerked his hand away, and Potter sat up, "are you ok?"

"I can move my hand," Draco said quietly.

Potter beamed at him and watched at Draco stretched and contracted with fingers over and over and over again, marvelling at this thing that was his hand. Potter stood and stretched, and then handed Draco a potion. "It's supposed to facilitate the next part, the… erm… therapy part."

Draco raised and eyebrow at the stuttering but took the vial anyway and swallowed it. And then he looked down at himself. "Did you dress me?" he asked.

Potter looked over at him sheepishly. "You were cold. And I didn't know how long you'd be out."

Draco wanted to feel violated by that, but he couldn't summon the energy. His hand was working, and he suddenly famished. As if on cue, Potter lifted him off of the table and onto the chair and sighed "Let's go find something to eat." Draco nodded.

Potter wheeled them to the floos and in moments Draco found himself in a little Italian restaurant. "Where are we?"

"Diagon Alley," Potter answered, and selected a booth at the back. Draco rolled up to the booth and scooted himself onto the cushioned seat. If it weren't for the chair next to him, he thought, no one would know that he couldn't simply hop up and stroll out of there on his own two legs. He sighed, and tried to repress the bitterness with the glimmer of hope he now had, because his hand was working again.

Across he table, Potter fidgeted.

"What is it?" Draco finally asked.

"Two things, really, that she told me we're supposed to do."

Draco waited for more, but Potter merely fidgeted. "Spit it out, Potter."

"I'm supposed to help you with stretching and stuff in the evenings and, in her words, 'stimulate' your hand." An innocent enough statement, but the way Potter stumbled on the word 'stimulate' and blushed proved highly disorienting.

Potter looked at him almost apologetically, as though he expected Draco to be horrified at the thought. Which Draco thought he really ought to be… but frankly… wasn't. Because if he can't have Potter the way he might have, once, a long time ago, maybe almost had… and given that he was officially a 'fully sexually functional' cripple, destined to live a life of unfulfilled desire… then at least he should get a hand massage.

"Ok…"

"And I'm supposed to get you to talk about your dreams. The ones from after the treatments, and… the ones at night. They think your memories might unlock as treatment progresses."

Draco sighed, and tried to prepare a polite but evasive answer. He opted for: "not all the dreams are about the attack."

"Oh," Potter said, as though he wanted ask more but was afraid to.

"Some are from the War, some are from that night. And then they've been changing when…" he drifted off, realizing he'd said too much, but Potter pressed him,

"When?"

"When I… when you… wake me up… the dream changes. Or ends…" or goes in an entirely new direction, he thought to himself.

"That's good, right?" Potter asked.

"I guess."

"Ok. Well, what about just now, after the first treatment? Did you dream, because you passed out and you were screaming…"

"Yes. But… not about the attack."

"The War?"

"Sort of," Draco answered. That particular memory… the rest of it… was a little too much to add into this already extremely disorienting situation.

Their food arrived quickly: fettuccine in pesto sauce for Potter, a braised veal with lemon tartar sauce on a bed of brown rice for Draco. Draco promptly began experimenting with feeding himself with his newly recovering but still only three-fingered right hand, and Potter looked over worriedly every few minutes.

When the fork fell for the third time, and Draco cursed loud enough for a patron nearby to yelp, Potter reached out and took Draco's hand in his, and began running soft little circles across the palm. Almost instantly, Draco felt the tension in his back and the pain in his limbs releasing, receding, and his eye-lids felt heavy, and he started to feel amazingly warm and almost dizzy. He felt a smile quirking at the corner of his lips and when Potter brushed over the stumps where his fingers used to be, he gasped and a thrill of pleasure shot through him.

He opened his eyes as Potter was pulling away. As soon as the contact ended, he felt almost bereft. But the glow of that little spark of pleasure still warmed him.

Even through his haze he could recognize that Potter looked guilty, which was somewhat disconcerting. And then he explained, "that potion… it makes you more… 'receptive'… to… stimuli."

Draco frowned and then felt his eyes widen as the implications hit him. Potter looked alarmed and seriously worried, though, and quickly started babbling, the way he does when he's nervous. "If it's too weird, and you don't want me to be the one to do it, don't worry about it, ok? We can find someone else. I can hire Philippe to do it, if you would rather someone who…"

But he didn't finish, and Draco's brain quickly supplied him with a variety of suitably depressing stand-ins like 'someone who is actually queer,' or 'someone who likes you,' or 'someone who thinks of you as more than a crippled charity case,' or 'someone who actually wants to make you feel that way…'

"Whatever you want, Potter," he answered, distantly aware that he was mostly lashing out at his own mind than at anything Potter actually said.

Potter looked strangely disappointed at that, though. But then he reached out again and took Draco's hand… "ok, we'll find someone else… but in the meantime…" and he proceeded to stroke Draco's palm again, and suddenly it was like every nerve in his body was connected to the surface of his right hand, and Draco began to lose himself in the swirling finger that was running up the length of each of his three remaining fingers.

He was so absorbed that he didn't even notice the large crowd walking past them to sit at a magically broadened table nearby until the harsh, carrying whisper of "_fucking faggots_," hit his ear and he jerked awake.

Draco's face reddened immediately and he leaned back into the booth, looking nervously at Potter and expecting at any minute a fierce denial and possible violence from him.

Instead, Potter got up calmly and walked over to the table where the group (predominantly overweight white men in their late-fifties, it seemed) was sitting and flashed them a brilliant smile.

"Hi, there. Harry Potter, nice to meet you. Sorry, didn't catch your name?" he said in a forcefully cheerful way, holding out his hand to the man who had whispered in passing.

"Wallis Wibbleton, Mr. Potter, sir," the man answered, typically starstruck. And then Potter, for some reason, shook the bastard's hand and smiled. Presumably this was how he managed the publicity, Draco reflected, and tried to swallow the bitterness. What had he been thinking? Holding hands in a public place like this with Potter, who has a public image and a law-enforcement career to worry about, after all.

"Wibbleton, Wibbleton… why, you're not related to the lovely Wendy Wibbleton, are you?"

The man positively beamed, and Draco felt nauseas.

"She's my wife, she is!" the man said with obvious pride.

Potter smiled back, and then deftly reached into his jeans and pulled out a little note book and self-inking quill and jotted something down, shaking his head with a little, 'tut tut' sound. "Sure would be a shame to lose such a fine asset to the Ministry," he said, and now the man's eyes grew wide and his ruddy face paled. Then Potter simply waved and returned back to sit with Draco.

"Did you seriously just do what I think you just did?"

Potter smirked. "Ten years of working inside the Ministry have taught me a thing or two."

"Do you really know his wife?"

Potter shook his head and smiled, "no, just a lucky guess. Usually I have to fish a little, but almost everyone has someone who works at the ministry."

Draco sat there bewildered as they finished their meal.

They made it home in time to meet Teddy after school. He swooped in like a ball of liquid energy, gave hugs all around, chattered about his friends, gobbled down an entire plate of spinach puffs, and ran up the stairs to play his videogame.

"I can't ask you to do all this for me, Potter. What about Teddy?"

Potter shrugged. "He's ten. He knows his way around this part of town, he's got a tube card, and he can get around the floo network. He practically raises himself at this point. You heard him: everything is about his muggle school friends or little-league Quidditch. Half the time I feel like no more than a personal bank and laundry service."

"When's his birthday?" Draco asked, and Potter seemed confused before dawning realisation spread across his features.

"April. We expect his letter in April," he said, sounding wistful.

"Gryffindor, do you think?" Draco asked, mostly for something to say that wasn't about their time in school.

Potter shook his head. "My galleons are on Hufflepuff."

Draco nodded, "I can see that." And then, for some reason, he blurted out, "the hat almost put me in Ravenclaw."

Potter sat up and looked at him with such a shocked expression that Draco would have been insulted if he had not immediately said, "yeah, I can totally see that."

They paused. And then Potter added, as though on impulse, "the hat wanted to put me in Slytherin. Said I could 'go far.'"

Draco stared at him for a minute while Potter grew slightly pink, but then he permitted himself to smile and nod, "That doesn't really surprise me, actually. Especially after the way you handled that bloke in the restaurant today. A Gryffindor would have started a row."

Potter smirked, the shrugged lightly. "Yeah, well, he would have deserved that, too," he said, standing up as though to leave the room.

Draco nodded and swallowed, steeling himself for his next question. "What I don't understand, though, is… were you just angry on my behalf? Or were you concerned that you might be… mistaken for being…" but he trailed off…

Potter turned around and raised an eyebrow and asked, "mistaken being for what?"

Draco inhaled to answer but none of his possible answers, like 'bent' or 'with me,' came out. Instead he muttered, "never mind," into his teacup, and then Potter chuckled, for some reason, as he left the room.

* * *

_The wandlight is blinding him and he feels a rough grip around his arm as he is tugged forward and pushed to the floor. Someone kicks him in the gut, and he collapsed onto his, but then hands and pulling him up onto his knees. Booted feet are kicking into him, smashing his body, knocking him onto the floor, and he cries out, begs for them to stop, but instead a whoosh of wind leaves him naked, his clothes stripped from him and he is shaking now, and pleading with them…_

_And then a warm hand grasps his shoulder, and a second slips into his right hand, stroking it, and he feels warm breath against his neck… the wandlight fades away, the voices die out, and pain recedes, and he isn't on his knees, he's lying on his back, and someone warm and gentle is lying next to him, murmuring into his ear and stoking his hair and holding his hand and he turns to seek out the warm mouth beside him, and he feels soft lips pressed against his as a calloused finger running the length of his arm down to his finger tips and back and soft lips whispering into his mouth, it's alright… I'm here with you…_


	5. Hope

Miss Kandy Whitlock: *blush* you're too sweet. I'm glad you like it.

**Part Five: Hope**

Draco woke up feeling both sticky and wet. Charming, he thought. Just when you would think it couldn't get any more embarrassing. That dream last night had been so vivid, though.

He shifted and tried to lean up onto an elbow, and immediately he was assaulted by a myriad of aches and little jolts of pain all over his body, though primarily in his spine and in his right arm and hand. He lay back down on the pillow and lifted his right arm, wincing at the pain, and looked at his mutilated hand. The fingers felt like they were throbbing, but he could still move them. It hurt worse than it had yesterday after the treatment, though, and that was alarming, but at least he retained the new degree of mobility.

He was about to call for Potter when he heard a soft knock at the door. Potter came in carrying breakfast on a tray and two little vials.

"One is for the pain, the other is... the same as yesterday," he explained, as Draco adjusted the bed to help him sit up so he could drink them. The pain receded somewhat, but not entirely.

Potter sat on the chair next to the bed and looked nervous.

"Where's Teddy?" Draco asked as he tried to suffer through the pain to grasp a spoon and feed himself the oatmeal Potter had brought him. He hated oatmeal… but it was probably the only thing he could keep down right now.

"Sleepover at Ron and Hermione's. I figured you could use the quiet."

Draco nodded his thanks through another mouthful of oatmeal. His fingers trembled and he dropped the spoon.

"I can't eat this right now," he said, and pushed the tray away.

"Do you want… help?" Potter asked tentatively.

"I want my hand to stop hurting," Draco snapped. "And I need a shower," he said quietly, blushing and wishing he could just evaporate rather than face Potter's knowing look.

Potter simply said, "oh," and removed the tray, and Draco struggled up to a seat position, legs hanging limp over the edge of the bed, and swept away the covers to reveal wet pyjamas and wet sheets. But instead of scooting into his chair, he looked up and caught Potter's eyes.

"I hate this," he said.

"I know," Potter answered quietly. He took a tentative step forward and reached out for Draco's hand, and took it in his.

Immediately, the pain in his arm and spine began to recede, and warmth flooded through him at the soft, gentle touch of Potter's palm holding his hand, and his fingers running swirling circles across this skin. He felt his eyes growing heavy. He started to feel lightheaded, and then he heard a weak little groan escaping his lips and he shook himself awake to see that Potter was averting his eyes, a blush across his face.

And Draco instantly knew why: the erection now tenting his soaked pyjama bottoms was unmistakeable. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing the embarrassment to subside enough for him to say without stuttering… much… "I think I'll… take that shower, now."

Potter nodded mutely and stepped aside so that Draco could slip into his chair and wheel himself into the bathroom with as much dignity as he could, under the circumstances.

He sat in the shower, the hot water beating down on him, and tried to swallow the oddly arousing embarrassment that Potter was most likely fully aware that he was lying in here, naked and hard, and touching himself. Maybe Potter wasn't thinking about it, though. Maybe Potter was too disgusted to think about it… but… well he decided he'd rather pretend, at least for a moment, that Potter was as turned on by it as Draco was.

He reached down to wrap his right hand around his cock. He'd been using his left hand until now, and although it felt familiar, it was also different to use his right hand again. The two missing fingers were conspicuously absent, he found. And he was somewhat disappointed to discover that touching himself didn't seem to affect him the way Potter did… the potion seemed only to work on external stimuli. But the lingering effects of Potter's touch more than compensated, and before he could even conjure more of an image of more than merely a warm finger running circles over his palm, he was pulsing out onto the white tile floor.

When he wheeled out half an hour later, there were fresh sheets on the bed and his breakfast was sitting on the bedside table under a warming charm that glowed a soft orange. He dressed slowly, ate what he could, and made his way downstairs.

Potter was waiting for him in the kitchen. He looked up and, with an obviously forced casualness, said, "we have to administer the second treatment soon, if you want to continue with it."

Draco nodded, although his hands felt suddenly cold and clammy.

"I've transfigured a table to use and I've been practicing, but if you would rather someone else do it…"

"There really isn't anyone else, though, is there?" Draco asked.

"Not really, no, unless we can convince Padma to make a house-call." Draco shook his head. Potter looked pale, almost ill. "Ok, well, let's floo-call her and check in before we start."

Ten minutes later Padma's eerily green face was floating in Potter's massive living-room floo.

"Potter will direct the curse to your hand and your legs together this time. When you wake up, we'll see how well the treatment worked on your hands, and whether the legs are responding. If they respond, we can repeat the treatment up to twice more. If they don't respond the first time, though, we'll only be able to try once more, tomorrow. Best case scenario, you could be walking with crutches by tomorrow night, Malfoy."

"If it works," Draco answered doubtfully.

"The progress with your hand gives us cause to be hopeful," she said encouragingly. Draco tuned her out as she started reviewing the treatment protocol with Potter. He was starting to wish he hadn't eaten that oatmeal after all.

In a blur of nervous fidgeting and rambling questions from Potter, Draco managed to get himself undressed and climb onto the transfigured table Potter brought out and set up in the middle of the living-room. If Draco felt uncomfortable in a gown behind curtains at the Hospital, he felt a million-times more so lying in his underpants, strapped down to a table, in the middle of Harry Potter's living room. There were years when he was younger when this would have seemed like a nightmare. Of course, there was also a time when this would have sounded extremely attractive.

Now, though, it was just really awkward. Add that to the awkwardness this morning, the prospect of even more vivid dreams to come, and the promise of physical therapy involving much, much, much more surface area… Draco found himself taking deep breaths and actually trying to remember he was about to be essentially cruciated.

Just like last time, he felt the pointed tip of a wand pressed into his skin, though this time it was directly between two of the vertebrae at the back of his neck.

And then: blinding, searing heat shooting down his spine and down his right arm, to pool in his pelvis and the joint of his wrist and he heard himself screaming. Slowly, slowly, the building pressure started to spread out, fanning through the bones and tendons in his hand and out into his fingers. The pain in his pelvis, though, descended slowly into his femur but stayed there, and moved no further. White, hot, burning pain throbbed through his hips, agonizingly trapped, the momentum behind the pain growing and growing with no promise of relief and it was too much to bear… and then everything went black.

* * *

_The Dementor is coming. Is here. Is bending over his father's white face, blurring his features and sucking out the joy, the happiness, the pain, the guilt, the memories, everything that made him who he was… all of it is pulled out of him… until his body slumps unconscious in his chair…and it's over… his father is dead to the world… grief, a kind of grief he can't even name… tainted with bitterness, regret, and guilt, wells up inside of him, and he bolts from the room, ignores his mother's wail, ignores the footsteps behind him… he needs to breathe, needs to escape, needs get out of this dark place… stairs and halls and doors and finally he is outside under a cruelly bright summer sun, leaning against a cold stone wall in the shadows, weeping. Weeping for his father, for his mother, for himself… for everyone… and then he hears him… Potter, coming up from behind… he whirls around and yells "You! You! You did this to him! It's all your fault!" he cries, and rushes at him, and punches, and kicks, and beats against his chest and Potter does… nothing. Potter stands there, lets him scream, lets him hit, doesn't fight back… Draco looks up into Potter's eyes and there is no anger, but also no pity, only… acceptance… and Draco collapses against him… tears and snot straining his robes… sobbing…_

_And then someone reaches up to grasp his shoulder, and rolls him over into two strong arms, and wraps him up in a soft blanket, and cradles him… and he reaches out to wrap his arms around him, to hold on, to never let go…_

* * *

Draco came back to the world lying on his side on a couch in front of a fireplace, covered in a blanket. His head was lying on something warm and oddly misshapen, with someone's fingers brushing through his hair. He closed his eyes and tried to remember where he was. He tried to move, to look up, but everything ached.

"Hey," Potter said, his hand withdrawing from Draco's hair, and Draco whined before he could stop himself. "It hurts, yeah?" Potter asked unnecessarily, and then reached into a pocket and withdrew two vials and held them over Draco's head. Draco reached out and took them quickly, and swallowed both, before he realized he'd used his right hand. Without trembling, or aching, or dropping anything, he'd used his right hand. He struggled up onto an elbow and turned to face Potter.

"My hand," he said, wonder in his voice, "it's not shaking anymore. It doesn't even hurt…"

Potter beamed at him. "What about…?"

Draco looked down at his legs and tried to make something, anything, move.

Nothing.

"Probably too soon," Potter offered hopefully, and Draco decided he would hold on to that.

"Yeah."

Potter shifted off of the couch and replaced his lap with a pillow for Draco's head, and then knelt down in front of him and stared at his hands awkwardly for a moment until Draco asked him, "don't we have to… stretch my legs or something?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Ok… well, do you know what you're doing?"

"Um, yeah she showed my while you were passed out yesterday so…" he looked at the floor, and Draco raised himself up onto an elbow.

"So…?"

"Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Do you mind?" Draco threw back at him.

"No, no!" Potter answered a little too quickly, and then promptly blushed. Draco raised an eyebrow and couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something.

Potter got up onto his knees, pulled away the blanket, and helped Draco adjust so that he was on his back. And then his hands sort of hovered over Draco's feet until Draco finally sighed in exasperation, "Anytime this week is fine."

Potter huffed but reached out and placed his hand to wrap around the sole and arch of Draco's foot and instantly Draco was infused with warmth that seemed to climb up through his ankle and his shin and past his cold, useless knee. Potter added a second hand, and began drawing his thumbs up along the sole of his foot from heel to toe in a slow, rhythmic pattern, adding a little lateral movement that loosened the ankle. Draco's eyelids fluttered and he felt almost dizzy with the sensation coursing up his leg.

Potter was talking, and Draco tried to focus on what he was saying in order to distract himself, which was only marginally successful. "It'll work," he said confidently, and Draco almost believed him, because anyone who could do that with his hands must know what he'd talking about. "It took two tries with your hand, so we'll do it again tomorrow, and you'll see, it'll work."

And then, _dear gods_ Potter began working Draco's arch and Draco gasped as his foot, sore and cold from disuse, was warmed and flexed and stretched and worked and it was _so good. _He probably whimpered when Potter moved on to the other foot, but the sigh of relief as it, too, was warmed and awakened drowned it out.

The delicious warmth only became dangerously acute when Potter moved up his shins to his knees, fingers brushed up to his thighs. Suddenly Draco felt the tantalizingly gentle warmth rising up through his sore, aching hips and into his groin.

When Potter lifted one of his legs, bending the knee and pressing it forward into Draco's chest, Draco actually had to bite his hand to stifle a moan. Potter leaned against the sole of Draco's foot to push the bent leg up against his chest, rocking gently forward and back such that Draco's own thigh was pressing into his now throbbing erection that lay flat against his stomach, and it was so unbelievably erotic that Draco could barely contain himself.

Potter seemed to realize this and fished for something to distract him, "did you dream, again?"

Draco nodded, trying to shake himself out of the daze of overwhelming sensations. "I did, but... not about the attack."

"The War?" Potter asked, his voice a little strained as he switched to lift the other leg. Draco saw that his face was flushed and he looked like he was trying very, very hard to control some overwhelming impulse. Draco chose to ignore the reality that it was probably the impulse to run away.

"Sort of," he answered, wishing he had the presence of mind to dissemble better.

"You said that yesterday," Potter said, pausing, and looking at him thoughtfully.

Draco took a deep breath, the sensations stilled now that Potter had stopped moving, and made a decision.

"I dreamt about… Father's execution," he said quietly, forcing himself not to look away.

Potter's eyes went wide for a moment, and he blushed a little more. "Oh." And then, in carefully measured tones probably designed to disguise how much he cared about the answer, he asked, "The execution? Or what happened… after?"

"Both," he whispered, though it wasn't entirely true, the memory had been interupted... but he thought for a foolish moment that somewhere behind Potter's wide eyes there might have been a glimmer of something… more…

Potter gave an awkward little cough and said, "ok," before turning back to Draco's legs. He lifted both of them together now, and scooted up so that his knees were tucked up against Draco's bottom, and his arms were stretched out so that his palms were flat on Draco's knees. He leaned his weight forward to press Draco's knees into his chest, trapping Draco's cock beneath them, rocking gently. Draco looked up to see Potter's green eyes gazing down at him through thick lashes, his cheeks flushed, and Draco couldn't help the quiet, pleading whisper that escaped his lips, "Harry..."

Potter breath hitched, and he stilled above him, releasing Draco's legs gently so that they fell, knees open, on either side of him. Draco stared up at him and saw Potter's eyes flitting across his face, like they were searching for something, but Draco didn't know what. He gazed up into those bright green eyes and parted his lips just barely and dared, for just a second, to hope.

Potter leaned forward, fingers tracing the familiar silver scars on Draco's bare chest, and Draco whimpered and closed his eyes as Potter leaned in to brush their lips together, whispering "Draco, Draco..."

Draco leaned up to meet his lips, opening his mouth, licking Potter's bottom lip, and Potter gasped, and pressed closer, tongue reaching in to meat his, and Draco wrapped an arm around Potter's neck and pulled him closer, reaching to drag him by his shirt and pull him down, until Potter came to rest on his elbows, covering, smothering Draco like a warm, breathing blanket, kissing slowly but deeply.

Draco breathed in the soft smell of parchment and tea that clung to his hair and his clothes, rubbing his cheek against a stubbled jaw, threading his hands through messy brown hair. And for just a moment, he allowed himself to believe everything was going to be alright. His legs would work again. Potter would want him again. He could forget about the pain and humiliation of this horrible chapter of disability and dependence, forget about the lost years, ten lost years they didn't have, and maybe this time they could be together.

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed. Long, languorous minutes. No urgency, no haste. Only the soft, lazy pull of lips on tongues, of teeth on lips, lapping and tasting and exploring, until Draco felt himself drifting into sleep.

* * *

_He's sobbing into Potter's robes, clutching him tightly, and for some reason Potter isn't pushing him away the way everyone else his whole life has always, always pushed away… instead he feels strong arms wrapping tentatively around him, gently stroking down his back, and it's like the anger and pain and sorrow all begins to melt away… He presses closer into the warmth of Potter's shoulder, until he brushes across bare skin… the hot bare skin of Potter's neck, and Potter's breath hitches, and suddenly Draco feels something new and terrifying and bright coiling inside of him and looks up to see Potter's eyes wide with surprise, his lips parting to whisper, "Draco…" as though his name was both the question and the answer… and now the terrifying brightness seems to rise into Draco's throat and he closes his eyes, and presses his lips to Potter's… and for a moment the whole world is standing still… and then Potter's lips part and suddenly they are kissing, ferverishly, frantically kissing and groping and pulling and grinding and the heat and urgency threatens to swallow him and it's so much more than he's ever believed it could be because it's… "Harry…"_


	6. Nothing

Responses to all your comments at the bottom! :)

**Part Six: Nothing**

Draco woke in the late evening to searing pain in his back and pelvis, and he groaned and tried to figure out where he was without opening his eyes.

He could feel the back of the couch against his back, and a cushion under his head, and someone deliciously warm was curled up in his arms. He could hear the steady breath where his cheek pressed against the space between Potter's shoulder blades. His arm was thrown over Potter's waist and tucked under his shirt, and he realized with a jolt that his hand was brushing against bare skin, tracing over a few wiry hairs on Potter's chest.

Potter stirred, and snuggled closer, and Draco became acutely aware that he was completely hard because Potter was now gently rubbing back against his cock, which was conveniently aligned perfectly with the groove of Potter's arse. Despite the layers of Draco's briefs and Potter's trousers, the gentle friction was agonizing, and Draco would have given anything, truly anything at all, to be able to grind against him but his legs gave him no leverage, and all he could do was lie there trying not to whimper.

"Potter, you're killing me!" he finally burst out, and Draco felt the vibration travelling through Potter's back when he chuckled.

"Mmm sorry…" he mumbled sleepily, "it just… it feels good" he said, wiggling down a little and rubbing himself against Draco more deliberately now, and Draco growled and stretched up to bite the back of his neck.

"You are a bloody tease and you should count yourself lucky that I'm still crippled," he whispered.

Potter shivered in his arms, "first of all," he said, and Draco listened to his voice rumbling through this his broad back, "tease implies I'm not planning to…" he wriggled against Draco, "relieve you... and frankly I don't see what you're condition has to do with it…" and now he was grinding against Draco again, and Draco was starting to feel dizzy,

"Relieve, you say?"

Potter chuckled, the sound vibrating through his back, and then he turned himself around so that they were face to face, and kissed him. It was soft, at first, but it quickly grew more heated as he fumbled with Draco's briefs and Draco struggled with Potter's trousers and finally wrapping his fingers around a thick, hot shaft just as he felt Potter's calloused hand grasping his. They stroked with the feverish urgency of much younger men, gasping and panting against each other. Within mere minutes Draco felt himself rolling over the edge of bliss and pulsing into Potter's hands just moments before Potter's cock pumped out into his.

They lay there dazed, breathing slowly returning to normal, and Draco tried to allow himself to just feel… happy… for now.

They stayed on the couch for the rest of the evening, dozing and reading quietly, until Teddy came home.

"Guess what we did? You won't believe it, Dad, I learned how to do a roll in the air while holding a Quaffle, can you believe it?"

"That's amazing, but… you were wearing a helmet, right?"

"Da-ad…"

"I'm serious, Teddy, it's no joke. I can't tell you how many times I almost died playing Quidditch,"

Teddy raised an eyebrow under his bright-orange hair and said, "don't exaggerate," in an imperious tone that sounded suspiciously like Granger.

Potter looked like he might defend himself but Draco jumped in, "he's not. Your dad has a terrible habit of falling off of brooms. He can barely stay in the air some days." Teddy laughed.

"You play seeker, too, right?" he asked suddenly. Draco winced at the present tense.

"I used to," Draco answered, hoping he was keeping the bitterness out of his voice.

"Can we go flying next week?" he asked, turning from Draco to Potter and back. "Daddy hardly ever wants to fly anymore."

Draco glanced at Potter, who gave him an encouraging smile, but Draco wasn't sure what he was trying to encourage, exactly.

"We'll see," he said appeasingly. Teddy raised an eyebrow.

"Come on, it'll be great! We can play three on three Ron, Hermione and Rose!"

Draco turned pleadingly to Potter, who sighed and turned to Teddy. "Draco can't fly at the moment," he said.

Teddy nodded. "I know, but you're going to fix it, right? I mean, your hand is all better, right?" he pointed at Draco's right hand, currently rapping the three remaining fingers on his knee nervously. "So when your legs work again, we can go flying!"

"Sure, Teddy," Potter answered, and Draco nodded, and tried to ignore the growing anxiety in his gut.

Potter ordered Chinese takeaway for dinner and Draco demonstrated his considerable prowess with chopsticks despite the loss of two fingers, with Teddy's loud, cheering encouragement. The boy extracted countless promises of Quidditch matches and trips into London and a visit to Hogwarts during the spring term and Draco obliged, hoping he was hiding the nagging doubt that any of it would ever happen.

When Potter vanished the leftovers and pulled out a pack of cards, Teddy fairly leapt onto his chair and they played round after round of exploding snap for what felt like hours. Draco even won a few times.

Potter smiled a lot.

Late in the evening, after Draco had taken a pain potion and a second shower, Potter came into the room in his pyjamas looking hopeful, and Draco prepared to turn him away gently.

"Draco, I don't care," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "It doesn't bother me."

"It bothers me," Draco explained, resting a hand on Potter's leg to reassure him. "It's too embarrassing."

Potter nodded, and kissed him goodnight, and padded away. Draco lay in bed wondering whether he should have swallowed his pride for just one night with Potter. This was probably his only chance, afterall. Tomorrow he would let Potter curse him, would suffer and scream and pass out, and wake up… most likely… still a bloody cripple. But the prospect of wetting the bed with Potter in it was just too much for his pride to handle.

And anyway... maybe, just maybe, there was still hope. Against his better judgement, he allowed himself to cling to that glimmer of a chance. Allowed himself, for once, to just... hope.

* * *

_He's kneeling on the floor, and they are kicking him, and cursing him, and pain is shooting through him like a million poisonous spines and he screams but no one hears him, no one cares… "filth!" they call him, and "murderer!"_

_And then, "Draco…" a soft voice calls to him, and arms wrap around him, and a warm wet mouth pressed against his neck, and he turns to seek out those sweet soft lips, as arms and legs entwine around him, hold him…_

* * *

Draco woke feeling… warm. He was faintly aware that he wasn't alone. Potter was lying next to him… actually sort of half on top of him, one arm slung across his chest, one legs wrapped around his, nose buried in his neck, asleep.

He also realized that, although he was blessedly dry, he really, really needed to pee.

Which is about when he recognised the pounding footsteps on the landing outside and quickly elbowed Potter in the ribs, "Potter, Teddy's up!"

"Wha?" came the sleepy reply, just in time for Teddy to burst through the door,

"Draco? Have you seen my dad?"

Potter grumbled from deep in Draco's shoulder and said something that might have been, "mmsleeping."

Teddy stepped in just far enough to see Potter's head where is stuck up from under the covers, smiled brilliantly at Draco, and said, "oh, ok! Bye then!" and bounced out of the room and down the stairs, leaving the door wide open.

Potter snuggled closer and mumbled something unintelligible but vaguely affectionate. Draco was too confused by the whole situation to really process what was going on.

"Um… Potter?" he asked.

"Harry."

"What?"

"I like it when you call me Harry," he said, pulling Draco closer, and now Draco really needed to pee.

"Ok, Harry, you need to get off of me or we're both going to regret it."

Potter frowned into his neck… "how exactly are we going to regret it?" he asked, the leg wrapped around Draco drifting a little higher to nudge at his erection.

"It will be wet and extremely unpleasant, I promise you," Draco said.

"Well, I wouldn't mind," he grumbled, but managed to sit up anyway. His hair, normally unkempt, was completely lopsided, one side standing completely on end. He stretched, and yawned loudly, and then turned around to place a kiss on Draco's forehead before shuffling groggily out the door. He turned back at the threshold though, to ask, "waffles or french toast?"

By the time Draco made it downstairs, Potter had made french toast, and Teddy, already fed, was in the living room watching T.V.

"Hi Draco! Wanna watch cartoons with me?" he asked, without turning away from the television.

Draco was still somewhat taken aback by how utterly unfazed the boy seemed to be, but he smiled and answered, "I think I need to eat first, ok?"

Teddy turned and quickly smiled at him and nodded, "ok!" and then turned back to whatever he was watching.

Draco rolled into the kitchen to find Potter sitting at the table sipping tea.

"Does your son often find you in bed with strange men in the morning?" Draco asked, trying to sound amused although he really did want to know, because Teddy was too old, surely, to be oblivious.

Potter looked up with a shocked expression. "No, of course not!"

"Sorry, it's just… he didn't seem surprised just now, when he came in…"

"You're hardly a strange man, Draco," Potter said, standing to fix a plate for Draco.

"He's known me a week."

"He's known about you for a long time, though," Potter said quietly, putting down a plate with toast generously drizzled in syrup in front of him and sitting back down to sip his tea.

Draco blinked. "How?"

"Well, after his grandmother died you were one of his only living relatives. And I knew you were alive, at least until five years ago... so I used to tell him about you. And… well, when I explained to him about… you know…" Potter blushed and Draco held his breath… "being gay…" he heaved a great sigh, "I told him about you."

Draco let the admission slip by unremarked. "Why?"

Potter shrugged, "he asked how I knew, so I told him about us."

Draco chewed his breakfast for a minute and then finally blurted out, "I would never have known. If you hadn't just told me, I'd have been perfectly willing to believe I was just some sort of odd exception left over from your rebellious teenage years."

Potter laughed. "Yes, well, you would believe that perfectly straight men would make an exception for you, wouldn't you?" Draco raised and eyebrow to confirm that, yes, he did in fact believe that. Or at least, he did when he was young and beautiful.

"But you're not... out... though, are you?"

"To the public? Not really," he shrugged. "The Prophet pairs me with a new girl every week, so I guess they haven't caught on."

"But... there have been others?"

"Not many. And not in the house," he shook his head. "It's hard to date with a baby at home, and by the time he was old enough, I was out of practice. I never was any good at it anyway. Plus… for a while I wasn't really sure… you know…"

Draco nodded, though he did not know. He'd always been sure.

"Ginny and I tried for a while, when he was three. But it didn't last. I think we were both just lonely. And I wanted him to have another parent, you know? When we were in school, I used to think... I thought that if I survived the War, I'd marry Ginny and have a ton of kids. I imagined us running around in a huge backyard... teaching them to fly. I didn't have a real mum, I wanted Teddy to have that."

Draco nodded. He could understand that. He'd grown up expecting to marry a girl from a good family, sire an heir and a spare. He'd allowed himself to grow fond of the idea of marrying a woman, raising children with her... doing his duty to his family. Now... now there were no more expectations... and he felt like we was floundering. Of course, with his disability, he needn't think about it at all... cripples don't get married, after all, unless they have mountains of cash to make up for it.

Potter was staring into his tea, but then he spoke again, "When Charlie Weasley married his Romanian partner while they were on holiday in Canada, Teddy asked me if I would rather marry a man or a woman and I remember looking at him… he was five or six at the time… and thinking it's now or never, either I lie to my own son, and keep lying to everyone else around me, or I just… tell him the truth. So I did."

Draco watched him sipping his cup and thought about the lying. He'd lied, too. For years. For much too long. It was hard to stop. Harder the longer he'd known someone, he'd found.

Presently, Potter continued, "When you moved in, Teddy asked me a lot of questions. He wanted to know where you'd been all this time, and how the chair worked, and who hurt you, and why they hadn't been caught yet. But the first thing he asked me was, 'are you going to get married?'"

Draco held his breath, the ache in his chest threatening to collapse inside of him, and he thought there was no way he could bear to continue torturing himself like this, and yet… and yet he couldn't stop. "What did you say?"

"It's not legal in the U.K. yet."

Draco snorted, and Potter laughed, but it was sad, hollow sort of laugh. Finally Draco decided he couldn't take another moment of this torture, "we should probably try the treatment again, right?" he asked.

"Yeah. Teddy's going to Bill and Fleur's, I'll just go tell him to get ready."

Teddy came in to hug him goodbye and wish him good luck and make him promise that they would go out flying first thing tomorrow morning before school when his legs were all better. Draco's chest clenched as he nodded his promises.

Potter brought out the table, while Draco chatted with Patil's head in the fireplace. "No improvement at all?" she asked. Draco shook his head.

"Then I'm afraid it's anyone's guess whether this round will work or not."

"It'll work!" Potter called out cheerfully, and Draco felt something dropping in his stomach.

He rolled over to the table and waited while Potter conferred about curse application and aftercare with Patil. Something akin to dread was building inside of him. He stilled his mind and tried to banish the feeling, or at least supplant it with the absurd optimism that Potter seemed to have in such supply.

Once Potter had helped him out of his clothes and onto the table, and strapped him down, though, he stopped thinking at all and tried to prepare himself for the pain he knew was coming.

The tip of the wand had barely touched his skin, it seemed, when the searing pain shot through his spine and pooled around the bones of his pelvis as a scream was wrenched from his mouth. The pressure seemed to build and build, white hot burning pain that throbs and sliced but stayed trapped at his hips, pooling and growing and pressing but never progressing and finally the pain was so great that he thought surely now he would die… and then the darkness descended around him.

* * *

_He's outside now, in the dark somewhere, and they've thrown him on the filthy street in a dark alley somewhere… someone's boot is digging into the side of his face and he is choking on his own blood… and then someone stomps on his side and he feels pain radiating out into his chest… he wants to struggle, he wants to get up, but his legs… they're numb... or not numb, because he can feel them and they hurt… no but he can't make them move… and his hand is bleeding and he can't bear to look at it and find out what they've done… _

_But someone else is holding that hand now, soothing it, stroking it, and whispering into his ear, and he turns away from the cold dark alley and into a bright, warm place that smells like tea and parchment… someplace like a home…_

* * *

He woke up on the couch again, covered in a blanket, an anxious-looking Potter sitting by his feet watching him.

Draco closed his eyes again, and summoned to courage to try to move his legs.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

He could feel them lying there, stacked one on top of the other. He could feel the agonizing pain of the curse in his spine and lower back and pelvis. But there was no change.

Not that he had expected any, really. When it didn't work the first time… still, to have one's worse suspicions confirmed was... crushing. A crushing defeat. Like the last little glimmer of light blown out.

And Potter... Potter had believed… Potter had been willing to start something because he believed Draco would be fixed again. What was the first thing he had asked? 'Is it permanent?'

Draco allowed himself a few moments to absorb the implications. He would never walk again. Never again. In some ways, he felt like he was hearing the news all over again for the first time. Like he'd only just now, lying there, realised that he would never walk again.

Never walk, or run, or fly, or... there were too many things. Never casually put his feet up on a coffee table. Never bounce his knee when he was nervous. Never lean back regally in a chair, legs crossed to display perfect shoes. Never wriggle his toes cold between a pair of warm calves in the middle of the night. Never drop to his knees to swallow a dripping cock.

It was devastating. Worse than before, because there was no more glimmer of hope left. There was no way to undo it. Broken. Unfixable.

Finally, he opened his eyes to see Potter watching him, a ridiculous, hopeless hope plastered on his face, and Draco swallowed, hard, before shaking his head.

Potter's face fell. The disappointment Draco saw in his eyes hurt so much he could barely breathe. He had to get out of here. He had to get away.

"I'm so sorry, Draco," Potter said, and moved closer, but Draco pushed his hands away.

"It's fine. It's not like there was ever any real chance."

Potter frowned, as though he wasn't sure exactly what Draco was talking about, and Draco realized he wasn't sure, either.

He raised himself up onto his elbows and struggled into a seated position, with help, although he quickly shrugged off the hands Potter's placed on his shoulders. "I need my chair," he said quietly, and Potter went and got it, a nervous frown still on his face. Draco moved into the chair and took the pain potion Potter handed him, but refused the rehab potion. "No point, now," he said, and wheeled out of the room. Potter didn't follow him.

Draco sat under the hot shower for nearly two hours before he could bring himself to go out and face the rest of his life. A cripple. A lonely, 'functional' cripple.

When he rolled out into his room, Potter was sitting at the foot of his bed, staring at his hands in his lap.

Draco rolled past him to find himself a nightshirt. No reason to get dressed again today. Although…

"How much longer are you willing to house me?" he asked, without turning around.

"Why?" Potter asked, sounding surprised.

"Because I need to arrange for other accommodations at some point and I'd like to know how long I have," Draco said, his voice every bit as cold he felt.

"You don't have to leave. You can stay,"

"I don't need your pity, Potter. It's not going to fix this."

"Fix what?"

"My fucking legs! Everything! The fact that the one long-shot cure didn't work. And now that we know, I need to move on with my life… and so do you," he finished quietly.

"Draco, the fact that it didn't work… that doesn't change anything—"

"You're right, Potter, it doesn't. I'm still a fucking cripple. Only now, I'm a permanent cripple. So just… just stop." He paused, and then continued, "Last time I was the one who fucked up, I know that, ok? You think I didn't want to owl you? I wanted to, I did. After Mother and Father…" he took a shaky breath and continued in forced calm, "after they died, I wanted to find you…. but... I had nothing to offer you. And now I have even less. So just stop it." He wheeled around to face Potter, hoping he could hold back the tears long enough. "I can't live like this, it's too much. I can't live so close to what I want and know that I can't have it."

Potter looked like he wanted to say something, but Draco turned around. He heard a quiet choking sound, and soft feet padding on the floor, and then finally the door sweeping shut with a click.

And Draco was alone.

* * *

Responses to your comments:

SeaBoundOphelia: Thank you for your comments, I'm really glad to hear that you think I've captured some of the experience of disability, it's been a challenge to try to imagine what it must feel like and how everything you take for granted needs to be completely relearned. I think you, of all the readers, will be glad about the way his treatment works out (or doesn't) because irl there is no miracle cure. Draco may have lots of wizarding solutions to help, but no miracle cure - that would be a cop-out on my part, I think.

poptartjuice: Thank you!

Denise0949: I'm glad you picked up on Harry's reluctance to take advantage, because I think it's important. Draco, of course, think it's rejection. Silly boy.

Miss Kandy Whitlock: Yes, I think you're right, but it's probably going to take Draco a while to really believe that.

Umi Minamino: Thank you!

bowsie22: Thank you!

dracodragon101: Thank you! Me too, i was always so glad JKR made him a blusher.

Hanai-kun: Thank you! I wanted to put Draco is a situation that would really challenge him. And so far I haven't read a wheelchair fic yet. Certainly not a wheelchair slash :)


	7. Rock Bottom

Responses to all your comments are at the bottom! :)

I'm sorry for the wait. I struggled all week with where to take this story.

**Part Seven: Rock Bottom**

Draco sat in his chair and stared at the chest of drawers in front of him. His hands were balled into fists, and he realized he was shaking. Tears of fury streaked down his cheeks, and he beat his fists against his useless legs, again and again and again, until he was too sore and too tired to go on. He rolled to the bed and slipped under the covers It was still only early afternoon, not even tea-time, but Draco couldn't bear the thought of food. Or anything. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

Draco spent the rest of the day in bed. He would have locked the door to his room, but Potter could simply alohomora it. Potter didn't come in until late in the night, anyway. Draco was lying on his side, facing away, when he heard the creak of the door, and the soft padding of Potter's feet. He left something on the table, and then hovered, like he wanted to say something… but in the end he simply turned and slipped out.

When the door had closed behind him Draco turned around with some effort, and found on the bedside table vial of pain potion that he desperately needed, and a bowl of rice with chicken and lentil curry that he wished did not smell so bloody good. He swallowed the potion and resisted the food for nearly fifteen minutes before he finally broke down and ate it. The spicy curry burned his tongue, but the bland rice soothed it, fillign his stomach slowly, warming him, and when he had set the bowl aside, he rolled over again and drifted back to sleep.

* * *

_Granger is screaming… her voice is echoing through the stone walls and he can hear Bella's manical laughter… cackling over the screams… _

_And then, a gentle hand reaches out to him and he rolls into a pair of strong arms, and seeks out the warm mouth that's pressed against his forehead… "I'm so sorry Draco… I'm so sorry"… but too soon the arms withdraw… and he is alone…_

* * *

He woke on Monday morning soaked in his own urine, but managed to lock himself in the bathroom before Potter came in to change the sheets. When he rolled out of the bathroom, though, Potter was sitting on the end of the bed looking at his hands clasped in his lap. A pile of soiled sheets lay at his feet. Apparently he was waiting for Draco, because he stood as soon as Draco entered.

"Draco," he started, "please, just… talk to me," he said plaintively.

"There's nothing to talk about," Draco answered quietly, staring out the window into the grey morning.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out," Potter offered, and Draco winced, deciding he'd rather not know if Potter meant the treatment, or the relationship, or both. Probably both.

"It's fine, Potter, just leave me alone."

Potter stood as though to leave, but then he spoke again, "I don't know why I'm surprised…" and he sounded surprisingly bitter. "I just… I thought things were different this time…"

Draco frowned at that, unable to decipher Potter's cryptic mumbling, or unwilling to hope that it meant what he wanted it to mean. A soft sweep and click behind him told him that Potter had left the room.

Thirty minutes later, the house was silent, and Draco ventured out of his room. He wasn't hungry, and couldn't concentrate on anything, so after an hour of staring out the window, he decided to try the library. That paid off tremendously when he discovered Potter's fully stocked liquor cabinet at the back by the large fireplace. Draco grabbed a bottle of fire-whiskey and a tumbler and deposited them in his lap, then wheeled himself back up the stairs and into his room.

The first glass burned and spread warmth down his throat and out to his body through his stomach. The second glass left him a little light-headed. The third glass sent the room tilting slightly off-centre, but generally things looked much better from the vantage point of three large glasses of whiskey in the middle of the day. He could block it all out, forget it all, numb the pain of loss and disappointment… fill the empty hole of his loneliness. He drank, and it all just slipped away.

* * *

Draco woke up Tuesday with a blinding headache and barely managed to roll out of bed and get into the shower before Potter to came in and change the sheets. They were soaked that morning, as usual, but with the charming addition of vomit, which apparently came up sometime during the night, though he had no memory of it. By the time he came out nearly an hour later, he found that Potter had changed his sheets and left him a hangover potion. He cursed the bastard even as he gulped down the potion. Then he threw on a bathrobe, and made his way back into the library.

The rest of Tuesday was a gin-soaked blur. Potter seemed content to ignore him, and Draco knew he needed to get out of that house, but the prospect of doing anything, anything at all, even making himself food, was so overwhelming, that after contemplating it, he felt compelled instead to just take another drink and lay back on the bed.

That night, Potter came in with a bowl of Italian wedding soup and a couple of hard rolls, but the smell turned Draco's liquor soaked stomach, and he rolled away, with considerable effort. Potter lingered by the bed, and Draco tried to still the buzzing in his ears.

"You can't keep this up, Draco," Potter was saying, but Draco's head was spinning too much to really focus on him. He groaned and pulled the covers over his head. "You're not even eating, are you? You can't just sleep and drink all day."

"I can do whatever the bloody-fuck I want to," Draco slurred. At least he tried to. "Go away."

"You're going to kill yourself like this," Potter said quietly. For some reason, Draco found that fantastically funny, and laughed. Potter didn't seem to see the humour, though, and just sighed.

* * *

_The men are cursing him, now, with words and wands, but he can't see anything… the pain is blinding him, coursing through his body, and he convulses on the floor… he can't feel anything but the shooting, stabbing pain the pulses irregularly but ceaselessly into his nerves, like millions of tiny knives… screaming…_

_And then a warm hand reached out to him, and warm arms embrace him, and something coils inside of him, rising into his throat, and he seeks out warm, soft lips, and hears a gentle voice saying, "Draco, Draco… you're drunk… we can't" but Draco isn't listening… he reaches out a pulls arm strong, lean body on top of him, and hears a moan…_

_

* * *

_

"Draco, Draco no we… we can't…" Potter said, but gave little resistance when Draco pulled him up onto the bed. He moaned as he slipped under the covers to find Draco naked and hard under the bathrobe that was already hanging open. He gasped and bit his lips, and Draco gazed up, bleary eyed, his alcoholic daze making him frantic but uncoordinated. He struggled with the tie on Potter's shorts until Potter finally relented, pushing them off, and settling between Draco's legs.

He bent down to press their mouths together and Draco reached out to wrap an arm around his neck and deepen the kiss, but he was sloppy in his alcholic state. Still, emboldened by drink, he broke away to whisper, "take me, Harry… I need you so badly please, please…" his voice thick with lust.

Potter growled into his ear and Draco felt the warm tingle of a lubricus charm and he gasped as fingers breached him, sliding rhythmically, stretching him, filling him. The room was spinning and he faintly thought this might actually be a really bad idea, but then Potter's finger brushed against his prostate and the haze became a shower of sparks and he cried out and pleaded, "now, please, I need you inside me right now…"

Potter pulled up Draco's legs pressed them against his chest, positioned himself, and then thrust into him in one stroke. Draco arched his back, groaning at the sudden fullness, and prickle of pain, pleasantly dulled by the alcohol. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as Potter started moving inside of him, starting slow but quickly growing faster.

Draco lay there, and let him move. But without being able to wrap legs around him, or lift his hips to meet Potter's thrusts, or twist his toes into the sheets, Draco felt so helplessly passive. It was beautiful and terrifying and… Draco hated it.

Absolutely hated it.

Before he could even register what, exactly, he hated so much, he felt his chest constricting and he was gasping for air and the tears were pouring down his cheeks and he couldn't breathe. Panic surged through him, threatening to lock his chest and his jaw and all he could do was shake his head no, no, no!

Potter stilled almost instantly, and through his unfocussed eyes Draco could make out an expression of confusion and fear on his face, and suddenly Draco was sobbing, openly sobbing, hands covering his face, as Potter pulled out of him and started to stammer, "Draco… I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I've hurt you…. oh gods, I'm so sorry…. I'm such and idiot…"

Draco tried furiously to wipe away the tears and clear his eyes, but he was so overcome with the humiliation of it all, and he couldn't settle his breathing… and Potter was already putting on his shorts again. Draco tried to reach out and stop him… tell him that leaving wasn't helping… leaving would only make it worse… wanted to ask him to stay… please, please stay…. But he couldn't speak, he could only sob, and Potter left him there, alone…

* * *

Draco woke drenched in urine and crusted in dried vomit, with a splitting headache. He struggled his into the shower, head reeling, and actually vomited again once he managed to disrobe and get into the shower chair. Potter was waiting for him when he got out, the pile of soiled sheets on the floor at his feet.

Draco wheeled past him and tried to fight the blush of humiliation as he remembered the catastrophe of the night before.

"Draco… listen… I'm sorry," Potter said.

"It's fine."

"No, it's not. Look, Draco, look at me," he said, and Draco turned to look at him, gritting his teeth and willing himself not to react to whatever Potter was about to say. "Can we still be friends?" he asked quietly.

Draco nodded.

It shouldn't hurt, really. Bad enough to have a cripple living in your house, but then to have said cripple try to seduce you while drunk, and then have him burst into tears right in the middle of it… there is only so much crazy anyone is willing to put up with. Potter apparently had a pretty high threshold, but even he had his limits.

"Friends," he agreed, and went to pretend to get dressed so that Potter would leave.

Clearly Potter regretted it as much as Draco did. Ok. He took a deep breath. This is why Draco needed to leave.

On the plus side, despite the alcohol-soaked haze in which his memories of the night before were still saturating, Draco felt like he could confidently say that a life of celibacy was infinitely preferable to the kind of vulnerability he had been subjected to last night.

Maybe some people could handle that, but Draco was not a Gryffindor, he understood his limits. Last night he had been entirely too powerless and although maybe that might have appealed to him when he was young, and whole, he was already so powerless now that there could be no pleasure in it, only bitterness.

He rolled downstairs around noon, found himself a new bottle, and rolled back out into the hallway to go upstairs.

And then he saw the crate against the front door. Funny that it wasn't the two brooms, one adult and one juvenile-sized, that set him off. But it wasn't the brooms. It was the crate of Quidditch balls, a golden snitch painted on the dark wood, fluttering in place. Leather straps worn soft, brass buckles tarnished.

His chest ached with the reality that he would never fly again. He would never do so many things again. He knew this. He'd known this. Why was it upsetting him again so much right now? Again the realization seemed to hit him… as though all over again… and it was so unfair. So miserably unfair.

He opened the bottle and took a drink. And then another. He sat there, drinking and staring.

The feeling was not of loss, this time though. Last time he'd been hit by this, he had felt loss… but now, sitting here in this bloody chair staring at that box and knowing that if he released the snitch inside he would never, ever be able to catch it… right now, he felt impotent. He couldn't fuck. He couldn't fly.

He took another drink, allowing the anger and frustration to seethe inside him, bubbling up and compounding all his past hurts. His parents, dead. His friends, lost. His magic, repressed. Ten years now he'd been wandless. He'd already coped with that loss, long ago, but now, coupled with his physical disability and, as he learned last night, a state of absolute sexual passivity.

He felt physically, magically, sexually impotent.

And it was just too much… much too much for the last shred of his pride and self-respect to handle. He sat there, staring and seething and hating…

Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass split the air, and Draco felt himself thudding against something hard.

* * *

Draco opened his eyes, feeling groggy and out-of-focus. There was a strong smell of alcohol very close to his nose, and underneath it, something coppery. He felt suddenly nauseas, and tried to open his eyes.

He was… on the floor. Lying face down on the floor. He couldn't see his chair, but he couldn't turn around behind him to see if it was back there. He tried to lift himself up onto his forearms but cried out when a sharp pain shot through his wrist and arm. And there was something sticky and wet on his arm… he turned around and felt his stomach drop when he recognised it as blood. He heard a vague crunching sound as he tried to move and upon closer inspection found that to be glass. Glass shards, to be specific.

He'd fallen? Out of his chair? Or maybe he'd been jettisoned. And the bottle… it must have exploded in his hands. His magic, dormant now without a wand to conduct it, must have burst out in frustration and anguish.

Draco tried to shake his head to clear it, but the hangover from last night, and the pungent reek of evaporating alcohol that he had been breathing in for probably some time before he even woke up… made it difficult to think.

After thirty minutes of cursing everyone he'd ever known, who could walk, which was pretty much everyone he'd ever known… he drifted back into an uneasy sleep.

It was afternoon when Draco realized exactly how pathetic his situation really was. His arm had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt too much to bear very much weight. And he really didn't think he could drag himself with one arm all the way to the stairs, or even to his chair, much less get into it. His legs, completely useless, were now actually a hindrance, dead-weight that kept him stuck here, lying on his stomach on the floor, in a drying puddle of his own blood, spilled booze, broken glass, and… well shortly his own urine if no one came to rescue him.

His bladder control being what it was, he tried his best to hold off, but eventually there was nothing for it. The warm wet liquid spread around the crotch of his pants and into his trousers before spilling out onto the floor. He felt his cheeks growing red just at the thought, because, although he was alone at that moment, eventually Potter would come and find him.

Well, luckily Potter no longer thought of him as a sexual being, either, so the prospect of finding him like this wasn't going to be that different from most mornings, anyway.

Gods, Draco hated his life.

This… this had to be the worst it could possibly get.

Until… "Dad! Draco! I'm home!" Teddy yelled as slammed open the door and stomped in, slamming it behind him. Draco winced at the noise. Teddy nearly tripped right over him in his haste to get into the kitchen, but when he saw Draco lying there, he gasped.

"Are you ok?" Draco tried to reassure him but Teddy was having none of it. "Hold on – I'm just going to go floo Dad, ok?"

"That's really not necce—" Draco started to protest, but Teddy had already run into the living room. Draco couldn't see the floo from his vantage point, but he could see Draco sitting in front of it.

"Dad!"

"Hey mate, what's up?" Draco frowned at the voice. It wasn't Potter's.

"Uncle Ron, where's my Dad?" Of course, thought Draco. With his luck, it would be Weasley, of all people.

"He's out in the field, what's going on? Are you ok?"

"I'm fine, but…" Teddy paused for moment, looking at Draco, who shook his head vehemently. He sighed, and turned back to the flames, "it's not an absolute emergency, but he needs to come home right away, ok?"

There was a silence at the other end, and Draco thought that perhaps the call had been ended, but then he heard Weasley calling out, "Malfoy, are you dying?"

"Like you would care!" he called back.

"I don't. But Harry would kill me if anything happens to your ungrateful arse, so tell me if I need to come through this bloody floo and–"

"No!" Draco called out. "No, it's fine. I'm fine."

"I should bloody-well come through here anyway and give your ferret-face a good talking to, so you should count yourself lucky Teddy is there."

"Honestly, Weasel, I don't give a bloody fuck what you have to say to me!" Draco yelled, cringing at the relapse into immaturity.

"Watch your language, you fucking ponce!" Weasley bellowed through the flames.

"Oh, that's just typical…" he drawled, rolling his eyes, though Weasley couldn't see it.

"Don't give me that! I supported him! I've supported this whole fucking farce and you-" the stopped abruptly and Draco winced at the sound of whooshing fire, then, and clomping footsteps. He braced himself for the flood of humiliation that washed over him as Ron Weasley, son of his father's hated rival, stepped into the hallway.

"Oh shit, Malfoy, are you ok?" he burst out, rushing over and kneeling down on the ground beside him. When his eyes fell on the blood, swore and turned to Teddy, "floo Hermione."

"I'm fine, Weasley, fuck off," Draco protested weakly, but already Weasley's overlong arms were rolling him over and pulling him up to a seated position, his limp legs folded uselessly beside him. Draco cradled his injured hand but managed to sit stiffly, his jaw clenched, staring daggers at the wall and utterly refusing to acknowledge that he was now leaning on the bloody Weasel. "I'm fine, Weasley, just go away," he finally pleaded.

"I can't very well do that, can I? You arrogant bloody…" Weasley seemed at a loss for words, and instead just lifted him up roughly and threw him into his chair. He stalked down the long hall and back on his overlong legs, cross his arms, and glared at Draco. "You smell like whiskey and piss, Malfoy, I hope you're happy. Some example you're setting for Teddy."

Correction: this was the worst it could possibly get. If the floor of that miserable old house could have opened up and swallowed Draco right then he would have been eternally grateful. Certainly he couldn't possibly get any lower than this short of the floor giving out under him. Being looked down upon by a bloody Weasel with a sneer worthy of his own teenage years. Rock bloody bottom.

But before Draco could answer, Granger strolled in with a surprisingly cool efficiency and healed his hand and the side of his face quickly and quietly. Then she led Teddy up to his room. Draco sat there warily watching Weasley who had been leaning against the wall scowling while she worked. He winced when Weasley pointed his wand, but it was only to reparo the shards of broken glass on the floor. He summoned the newly repaired bottle and sneered at it. Draco ground his teeth and tried to ignore the impulse to ram him in the shins with his chair.

Granger returned quickly, and moved to join Weasley. Draco moved to roll up the stairs, when Granger called to him.

"We'll just be in the kitchen… ok?"

He didn't answer them. Instead he just wheeled himself back up the stairs and into a shower, before throwing on clean pyjamas. He considered putting on actual clothes, but decided against it. What was the point?

He considered not going down there, but of course they weren't going to go anywhere, and he really did not want them to come up to his room seeking him. He'd be better off just getting the yelling over with so that he could go back to lying in bed wallowing.

He rolled in to find them sitting at the table, each frowning into a cup of tea. A third cup, glowing under a warming charm, was sitting at his customary seat. Grudgingly he wheeled up and prepared for the lecture.

Surprisingly, it wasn't Granger, but Weasley who finally broke the silence. "I'm just glad you've shown your true colours before Harry got even more attached. Do you have any idea how wrecked he was on Sunday when he realized you were only pretending to be interested in him when you thought he could help you?"

"What are you talking about?" Draco was not sober enough to be having this conversation. Or maybe not drunk enough.

"Ron…" Granger said, and placed a hand on his arm, but Weasley shrugged her off.

"No!" Weasley cut her off, and then he leaned in and caught Draco's chair, keeping him from wheeling away from the invasion of his space. "Listen to me," he said, his voice quiet and deadly, "I've already had to pick up the pieces the last time you freaked out and left. So you need to man up or get the fuck out of here before you do any more damage, because Harry has been in love with you since he was seventeen years old."

"You're delusional," Draco scoffed, inwardly reeling at the implications of Weasley's claims.

"Oh you are both bloody impossible!" Weasley declared, throwing up his hands and storming out of the kitchen. A roar in the floo told them that he was gone.

Granger sat across the table and sighed.

"Go on," Draco sighed, arms crossed, "say what you want to say."

She swallowed, and then put down her cup of tea and looked across at him. "I'm really glad you're here, Malfoy. We'd lost hope in the last few years. I can't believe you were… I mean…" she flushed and stammered. "It's just awful. I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, Granger," Draco dismissed.

"No, it's not. And now the Auror Office is dragging it's feet, like they don't even care what happened to you?"

"They don't," Draco said bitterly, and took the cup of tea in front of him.

"Well, we do," she answered firmly, and Draco snorted. "Malfoy- Draco," she said, her voice almost painfully earnest, "I told you ten years ago, it's all in the past." Draco frowned to cover the wince at the memory of Granger's screams echoing through the cold, dark hall of Malfoy Manor. "You should have heard Harry when he told us you'd been found."

"Potter just wanted to satisfy his, what did you used call it? His saving-people-thing. Now that he knows I can't be saved, or fixed, the novelty will wear off. He'll move on," he said, trying to sound dismissive, but failing.

"Move on to what? He practically rebuilt the house for you to live here with him." She shook her head in an infuriatingly affectionate way. "Ron's right, you're both impossible," she said, and stood to leave.

"Granger?" he called, as she was almost through the kitchen doorway. She turned and looked back at him. He wanted to say, 'thank you' but it came out as a silent but firm nod.

Apparently that was enough, though, because she answered, "you're welcome," before heading into the living room and out through the floo.

* * *

**Responses to your comments:**

_Hanai-kun: _I agree, it would have been too good, and unrealistic, for him to get better. And I agree that Draco has to learn to feel better about himself before he can get involved with Harry.

_Denise0949:_ Yes, in this chapter Draco gets to learn that he can't isolate and feel sorry for himself.

_Serpent91:_ Thank you!

_Asalea:_ Thanks for the tip, I'm going to read it when I finish with this. And I'm glad you like my take on Teddy.

_lauren49ERS:_ Thank you!

_AcadianProud:_ Thank you!

_Justlookingforupdates:_ Thank you!

_Tondayala Cherise Dupre:_ I'm so glad you like my characterisation of Draco, he's a fun challenge.

_AlineDaryen: _Thank you, I'm so glad you like the flashbacks, I'm always worried that they will be too hard to follow.

_SeaBoundOphelia:_ Yes! Exactly! People are fragile and imperfect and tragic things happen, and one shouldn't need to undo all the bad, or "fix" everything that is "broken" in order to have love – for yourself, and for others.

_blackcurrent:_ Thank you!

_Ucelai:_ Thank you!

_Dulinh:_ Thank you, I'm glad you like them together.

_ariablu:_ Don't worry, Harry won't let him go. I'm glad you like it :)


	8. Beginnings

Responses to all your comments are at the bottom!

Smut Warning: I don't really believe in warnings like this, because if you've read the last 30k words you're probably not going to be surprised… but yeah, there is some boysex in this chapter.

So, to the hundred or so of you who are subscribed to this story, please enjoy the final chapter (for now.)

* * *

**Part Eight: Beginnings**

After Granger left, Draco rolled himself back up to his room. He'd just managed to settle himself back on the bed when he heard a light knock on the door.

"What?" he called, imagining that Weasley and Granger had decided to come back. He immediately regretted his tone, though, when he saw Teddy's face peeking through the crack in the door.

"Teddy?" he said, struggling to prop himself up onto his elbow. "Are you ok?"

Teddy nodded and smile shyly. "Dad's not home yet, can I come in?"

"Of course," Draco nodded. Teddy beamed and then immediately walked in and climbed onto the bed. Draco reached over and used the panel to tilt the bed up and help him sit. Teddy scooted over to lean against the propped up bed next to him.

"I'm sorry we won't be able to play Quidditch together," Draco finally said quietly, hoping that the bitterness he'd been feeling all week wasn't so easy to hear in his voice.

"What? Oh, that's ok! We can still play exploding snap, though, right?" Teddy asked brightly.

"Yes," Draco chuckled. "Although if you insist on winning all the time I'll have to teach you to play chess, instead," he said.

At that, Teddy's eyebrows shot up and he fairly leapt off of the bed, and up the stairs to his attic room and then back down in a whirl of energy and colour, leaping back onto the bed with a thump and thrusting a large flat leather box into Draco's lap as he sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed.

Draco was too bewildered to do anything but open the box, gasping as the flap opened to reveal a wizard's chess set. It had been years since he'd played proper wizard's chess. The board lay at the bottom of the box, and the pieces were mingling in a corner. Two of the bishops were in the middle of a brawl, but Teddy reached in and separated them.

"Dad refuses to play with me," Teddy explained, "because he says Uncle Ron has made me too good at it and it's no fun to lose all the time."

"Weasley?" Draco raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"Mmm hmm," Teddy nodded enthusiastically as he started unpacking the set from the box, laying the board out between them so that it rested on Draco's outstretched legs. "He's the best, he can beat anyone," he stated matter-of-factly, Draco rolled his eyes but refrained from comment. "You don't like Uncle Ron much, do you?" Teddy asked suddenly, though he didn't sound particularly bothered.

"Not especially," Draco smiled.

"I do," Teddy answered firmly, but there wasn't any judgement in it.

Draco nodded. "So does your dad," he said, and as he helped to place the little wiggling figurines onto the board.

"Yeah, but not, you know, _like _like, though, cause Uncle Ron's with Aunt Hermione," Teddy said seriously, as though Draco might not know that.

"Yes, I know," he affirmed, breaking up a fight between two tiny knights and placing them on their respective sides of the board.

Teddy turned to him and caught him in a piercing gaze, his eyes suddenly the same green as his father's, and asked, "do you _like_ like my dad?"

Draco almost sputtered, but recovered quickly enough, and evaded the question, asking instead, "Why do you ask?"

"Cause he _like _likes you," Teddy answered with alarming conviction. Almost enough to believe.

"How do you know?" Draco asked, before he could stop himself.

"He told me," Teddy said simply, setting down the castle that was wriggling in his grasp.

"When?" Draco asked, trying to sound casual.

"On Sunday morning, while he was making French toast," he answered. Ah, of course. Back when there was still hope.

"Oh, not again!" Teddy said exasperatedly and Draco looked down to see the two knights who had just been fighting had now left their horses and were rolling around making out in the middle of the board. "They do this every time!" he said giggling, as Draco reached out and pulled them apart. The black knight glared at him and stormed back toward his horse, the white knight stood there watching him wistfully before turning around and going back to his own side of the board.

"Yes, well, things have changed since Sunday," Draco sighed, placing the white Queen and King side by side, where they immediately and obnoxiously linked arms.

Teddy nodded solemnly. "You don't like him anymore," he said.

"No…" Draco started, but Teddy interrupted him.

"You don't like him because he couldn't fix your legs."

"No… but I don't see how we can be together if I'm... like this…" Draco answered quietly.

Teddy cocked his head to the side and frowned at him. "I don't think Dad really cares."

"I'm pretty sure he does…"

Teddy seemed to feel that sentiment warranted a hug, and he leaned across the chess board to hug Draco, completely disrupting the entire table. Draco allowed himself to lean into the embrace for just a moment before he shrugged the boy off with a plastered-on smile and a ruffle of his hair and they set about rearranging the board again.

* * *

Teddy and Draco had each won a round and were trying to break the tie when the floo sounded downstairs and Potter's voice called up to them, "takeaway!"

"Wicked!" Teddy called back in answer, and grinned broadly at Draco before leaping off the bed and thundering down the stairs.

Draco debated about following him, but eventually his hunger overcame his embarrassment, and he decided he might as well go down there. Maybe Potter would be less likely to yell at him if Teddy was in the room.

No sooner had he slipped into his chair, though, did Potter knock on the doorjamb and step into the room carrying a tray with several white boxes of Chinese takeaway. The vinegar in the sweet and sour sauce wafted over and Draco found his mouth watering already. Potter conjured a little table in front of Draco's chair and pulled up a chair for himself on the other side. Draco reached out and pulled over the box of sweet and sour pork and scooped some into a box of rice. Potter handed him a pair of chopsticks, and he broke them apart and ran them back and forth against each other to brush off all the splinters before grasping them and beginning to eat. Potter, meanwhile, helped himself to the chow mein.

"So..." Potter began, "I heard about this afternoon."

Draco swallowed a mouthful and braced himself for the humiliation. "I'm sorry," he said dejectedly, "Teddy… he shouldn't have had to see that…"

"No, he shouldn't have," Potter nodded. "I would rather my son never see someone he knows and cares about getting pissed in the middle of the day. I'd rather he never find someone lying facedown in their own blood. It's not only dangerous for you, you know. You're living with a kid, now. You ought to be setting a better example."

Draco felt too guilty to even defend himself. "I'm sorry," he offered weakly.

Potter nodded. "Ron said you were a right git," he chuckled. Draco scowled but refrained from comment. Potter put down his food and cocked his head to the side, before adding, "they both seem to think you're still crazy about me, though…" he said.

Draco tried not to blush, and settled for hiding behind his box of take-out and omitting a more-or-less dignified "hmpf." For some reason, that just made Potter chuckle again.

They sat quietly eating a few more minutes before Potter spoke again, his voice surprisingly soft. "Draco… what happened last night?"

Draco tensed, and forced out a stiff, "I don't know."

"I thought… I thought you didn't want me. All week you've been avoiding me. And then you pull me into the bed and then… what happened?"

"I'm sorry. I wanted to but then… it was too much…" Draco broke off, because he didn't know how to explain it.

"Were you scared?" Potter asked quietly, and Draco didn't answer, although he felt his face glowing red in affirmation.

"I just… I hate being so powerless…" Draco confessed bitterly, turning away.

"I'm sorry," Potter offered, sounding sincere.

"It's not your fault… I just… there are so many things I can't do anymore… so it's probably stupid to care about any one thing… but… I don't know… it used to be different," he said, looking up and willing Potter to understand.

Potter raised a sly eyebrow, "you used to top more…" Draco choked on his food, but nodded. "So… what's stopping you?" Potter asked, batting his lashes absurdly, and Draco rolled his eyes.

But Potter was not to be dissuaded, apparently. "Look, what you would do if you could stand up out of that chair right now?" he asked. Draco sighed and thought he should probably stop this right now, but a sudden pleasant swelling in his crotch was interfering with his better judgement at the moment.

"I would bend you over the nearest available surface and fuck you into next month," he said dryly, but was thrilled to see the flash of fire in Potter's eyes.

"I might take you up on that later," he said quietly.

Draco shook his head. "How can you even see me like that after…" he started, his face already blushing, "I mean, you have to change my sheets like a bloody child, how can you still…?"

Potter shrugged but remained silent, and Draco wanted to hit himself for spoiling everything, like he always does, by bringing up all the many good reasons for Potter not to want him.

But at length, Potter answered him. "Ginny snores, you know. Worse than Ron." Draco blinked. "Plus, her feet smell," Potter added, as though an afterthought.

Draco looked at him, frowning. "I fail to see your point."

"All of this," Potter waved his hand in the vicinity of the chair, and the bed, and the loo behind him, "it's just like snoring or smelly feet, it's just part of what makes you… human."

Draco hmpfed into his rice.

Potter sighed and sought out his eyes, "you're not perfect, Draco, but you know what? You probably never were," Draco made an affronted noise, but Potter just rolled his eyes. "_No one_ is. It's just not as easy for you to hide it any more."

"Indeed," he answered ruefully.

"But knowing that… this…" he waved in the direction of Draco's legs now, "it doesn't change the way I feel… the way I've always felt. Maybe it's just harder for you to accept now."

They ate the rest of their meal in companionable silence before Potter excused himself to see Teddy off to bed with a quiet, "goodnight."

* * *

They didn't meet again until Friday night. Draco heard them leaving in a rush of pounding feet and slamming doors, but didn't get up until much later. He did not, however, return to the library liquor cabinet.

Potter didn't come home until late in the evening, and Teddy never came home at all. "Sleepover at a Muggle friend's house," Potter explained. "Had to pick him up and bring him a new dose of his suppressant. Have you eaten?"

They had pasta in the kitchen, Draco reading the Prophet and Potter reviewing case files. It was all very… domestic… Draco thought. And that seemed like a good thing, for some reason.

Potter excused himself after levitating the dishes into the sink, and Draco sat downstairs a little while longer, gazing around the kitchen, and marvelling at how _at home_ he felt after only a couple of weeks here. Sighing, he decided to head up to bed.

Back in his room, he changed into a t-shirt and shorts to sleep, brushed his teeth, washed his face. He was just about to close the door and go to sleep when he stopped himself. Across the hall he could see Potter's bedroom door stood half-open.

He rolled out into the hallway. He could hear running water and the sounds of brushing teeth.

Through the open door Draco could see the room: it was a blue and white replica of Draco's own. A blue and white Persian rug, dark wood furniture, drapes that matched the bed hangings. Candles in Dutch-looking porcelain sconces on the walls lit the room in a soft glow.

On impulse, he rolled himself through the door a little, and called out, "Potter?"

He heard a loud spit and rinse and then the tap turned off and Potter stepped into view wiping his mouth with a washcloth and smiling. He sat down on his large, four-poster bed. He was in an undershirt and still wearing his trousers from work.

"Come in," he nodded, and Draco rolled a little closer.

To his enormous surprise, the bed suddenly shortened, and the bedside table with it, just like the kitchen table and chairs always did.

Draco raised an eyebrow, "you had an adjustment charm put on your bed?"

Potter blushed beautifully and shrugged, "wishful thinking, I guess…"

"Oh really? Wishing for what, exactly?" Draco asked, backing away from the bed and trying to look incredulous through his own blush.

Potter shrugged again, and swallowed, apparently summoning his courage. "I seem to recall something about bending me over the nearest available surface…?" he asked, and Draco watched as he stood up and turned around, bending over the edge of the bed. "How's this?" he asked, turning around to look at Draco through his messy brown bangs.

"At this point I'd probably order you to take your trousers off," Draco smirked.

Surprisingly, Potter promptly, almost hurriedly, obeyed. Draco watched him fumbling with his belt buckles and buttons before dropping them to his ankles.

"Shorts, too," he drawled, and thought he might have seen Potter shiver before he hooked his thumbs into the elastic and slipped his boxer shorts down to his ankles, too. His bottom, pale and soft, lay exposed in the soft light of the bedroom.

Draco's mouth was suddenly very dry. And he was also unbelievably hard. And Potter… he could hear that Potter's breathing had become shallow, too.

He wheeled closer. "Open yourself up, let me see …" he said in an imperious tone, and he watched as Potter shivered, unmistakeably this time, and reached back to pull the soft mounds of his bottom apart and expose his waiting entrance. Draco watched the blue spark of a cleaning charm pass over the exposed flesh and knew Potter was already reading his mind.

"Wider," he said, his voice hoarse, and Potter whimpered and he widened his stance, stretching himself apart. "Look at you," Draco breathed… "spread out for me… I could do anything to you…" he growled.

"Ohgodsyes," Potter whimpered.

Draco wheeled himself closer still, and reached out to replace Potter's hands with his own, kneading the soft flesh and spreading him wide. He leaned in to exhale a long, hot breath on the tender ring of muscle. Potter whined. Draco kissed the shallow dimples of his lower back, then began to flick and nibble his way slowly, tortuously slowly, down, down, down… but stopped before he reached the quivering pucker spread out in front of him.

Potter released a pathetic little, "please…"

Draco smirked, and then dragged his tongue in broad, wet strokes over the exposed flesh in front of him, pressing but never breaching him, pausing now and then to puff cold air or draw tantalizing circles with the pointed tip of his tongue.

Potter writhed, and pleaded, and pressed back against him, until Draco pulled away entirely, slipping the fingers of his right hand into his mouth,

He drew them out, wet, and pressed them against Potter's twitching entrance, with enough pressure to be tantalizing. Potter whimpered hoarsely, "please… Draco please, please, gods I need it…"

Draco slipped first one, then two fingers in and Potter began to move against him, meeting his thrusting hand. Without his missing fingers, Draco was able to bury the remaining two down past the knuckle, and Potter groaned when he crooked them just right.

Potter was panting now, and rutting against the edge of the bed, his cock trapped in front of him, and he started begging, "Draco… I need to… oh gods" he practically sobbed, "I need to come now please, please, please…"

A brilliantly bright rush of power surged straight to Draco's own aching erection, and he answered silkily, "alright… come for me, Harry."

Potter reached around to stroke himself and almost instantly came, the walls around Draco's fingers rippling and sending him into such a state of desperate arousal that even knowing he couldn't do this quite the way he wanted to couldn't spoil it.

Potter collapsed against the bed, panting, and Draco started to pull open his shorts to bring himself off, but then Potter turned around, his eyes gleaming with something frighteningly, thrillingly fierce, and in a single, graceful swoop he lifted Draco up out of the chair and onto the bed, and stepped out of his trousers before climbing up and straddling him.

Draco pulled him in for a bruising kiss and reached down to stroke himself but Potter swatted his hand away. "I want you inside me," he whispered, the hot breath against Draco neck sending shivers down his spine. His fingers were running up under Draco's t-shirt and brushing over his skin. Draco moaned and arched into the touch.

Potter pulled the shirt up over his head and sank down to lick and bite a nipple. "I want you to fuck me, Draco," he growled, grinding his already-spent cock against Draco straining erection. All Draco could do was nod, dazed.

Potter moved off of him just long enough to tug Draco's boxer shorts off, and pull off his own shirt, before settling over him again.

And then, suddenly, a flood of liquid warmth coated his cock and Draco reached down and held the base firmly in place as Potter lowered himself slowly onto him. Dear gods why hadn't he thought of this? Potter was so bloody tight and oh gods Draco had thought he would never have this again and fuck was it good. Potter was settling himself now, pulling him in slowly, and Draco allowed it, reaching back to arrange the pillows so that he could sit up enough to comfortably watch.

And then Potter grabbed his hands, and placed them on his own hips. "You're in control," he said, and Draco nodded, and began to lift him up and down slowly, very slowly. Potter groaned, rising and falling perfectly at Draco's command, obeying the pressure from his hands as he moved him faster and faster, driving his cock ever deeper into that tight hot channel. At some point he adjusted the angle, twisting Potters hips slightly, and Potter cried out, his face wearing something like surprise, and Draco saw that Potter was hard again, jutting out at him, red and swollen and perfect.

The sight of Potter riding him, head thrown back, strong muscular thighs gripping his torso, cock hard and aching… it was perfect. He could feel his climax coiling down inside him, rising slowly, and he reached out to stroke Potter's cock, and Potter cried out again, and impaled himself frantically. One, two, three strokes and Draco felt the walls around him spasm as hot jets spurted out onto his stomach, and he felt himself rolling over the edge at he emptied himself into Potter… _Harry_… who rode him through his climax.

When his sensitive and dwindling cock could take no more, he reached out and stilled Potter's hips, and the man collapsed on top of him, a warm blanket of sweating skin. Eventually, though, he slipped off to the side, cast cleaning charms on both of them, and muttered a quiet nox to extinguish the candles. Then he lay back down, wrapping his arms and legs possessively around Draco, his face nestling into Draco's neck.

Draco breathed in the smell of sweat and sex and a hint of old parchment, and relished the rough scratch of stubble against his shoulder where Potter had settled himself, before drifting into sleep.

* * *

He woke the next morning somewhat disoriented. He was… in Potter's bed? Yes… and Potter was lying next to him… actually more like on top of him, his leg thrown over both of Draco's, one arm wrapped around his waist, face buried in Draco's shoulder, drooling slightly. Draco smiled at the knowledge that Potter, perfect Potter, drools. It seemed only fair.

He hadn't had any nightmares that he could remember. A handful of dreams, perhaps, the echoes of which still floated by in his mind's eye, but no nightmares.

He closed his eyes and debated the likelihood that he would be able to go back to sleep. No… he had to pee, of course, and it couldn't wait. He nudged Potter in the ribs gently.

"Mmmm" Potter protested, snuggling more tightly.

"Potter, I have to go,"

"Stay," Potter mumbled into his neck.

"No… I mean, I have to go. I have to pee…"

Potter grumbled and made as though to get up, but instead just held out a hand to catch the urinal that came flying in from the other room. He handed it to Draco, but otherwise seemed content to just remain where he was, under the covers, wrapped around him.

"You must be joking."

"No," Potter shook his head against Draco's neck, and the stubble sent a shiver down Draco's spine that really didn't help the whole needing-to-pee thing at all. "I'm using it when you're done," Potter went on, "it's way too bloody cold in this house anyway and I'm cosy under here."

"I am not peeing in this thing with you lying right next to me."

"Then go in the bed and I'll clean it up later. It's your choice, but I'm not moving, it's like seven in the bloody morning, and Teddy's not even here." He sighed. "Look, I'll go first, ok?"

He rolled over, snatched the urinal, fiddled under the covers, and then lay back on the pillow. A loud echoing stream gushed and then faded to a trickle, and Potter let out a contented sigh. Then he reached for his wand on the nightstand and vanished the contents, and handed it back to Draco.

Draco held the thing and thought about whether he could summon the serenity to just let go and… go… right next to Potter, of all people. He closed his eyes, took a few calming breaths, and tried to relax. It seemed like an eternity, a horribly embarrassing eternity before he felt the first spurt… and then a flood released itself, and he felt his whole body relaxing into the bed as his bladder emptied itself, the stream fading into a trickle and then stopping. Potter vanished the contents and tossed the jar onto the bedside table and wrapped himself around Draco again, settling his face back into Draco's neck.

Draco sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, willing it never to end.

"Wuvooo" Potter mumbled into his throat.

"Hmm?"

Potter moved to free his mouth from Draco's neck long enough to whisper into his ear, "I love you," before turning back.

Through the thumping in his chest Draco managed to whisper back, "I love you, too."

~Fin~

* * *

A happy (but not perfect) ending for Draco. Yay.

However: I'm considering writing a sequel (after I have a little break to work on other projects :) Anyway, leave me a note if you think our favourite duo should team up to solve the case and figure out who attacked Draco and why. This was not meant to be a detective fiction, but I could conceive of writing one with these two. Paralysed!Draco needs a new job, after all. Plus, Potter will have to deal with outing himself once and for all, Teddy has to start school, Draco will face persecution as an ex-DE, and he still doesn't have a wand. And there are still so many unanswered questions...

So, leave me a note if you want a sequel. Cheers!

* * *

Responses to Your Comments:

Yukiko-Angel: Thank you, glad you've enjoyed it so far.

Va Vonne: Thank you!

Denise0949: I'm glad you liked the Ron and Hermione scene. They often get left out or depicted as unsupportive, but I don't buy that. Ron, for example, is fiercely loyal, no way would be he unsupportive of Harry's relationship, even if it is with Draco.

Kitty: Thank you! I've struggled with this Draco, whose obviously not the same boy he was when he was younger, but still needs to have enough pride and anger to be in character.

Justlookingforupdates: Glad you like it!

AcadianProud: I completely agree.

lauren49ERS: Thank you! Yes it had to get bad before it could get better, though.

blackcurrent: I think he has finally figured that out now.

followthedark: I really wanted this appeal to people who don't already love disability fics, so I'm glad you like it.

Serpent91: Forgive the annoying doubt/angst, but hopefully the resolution was satisfying.

GacTheDestroyer: Oh I'm so glad you've enjoyed it.

AlineDaryen: Why, thank you!

Reiko Katsura: Thank you so much. I'm glad you've enjoyed it. It's a challenge to keep Draco IC, especially since he's clearly already been through a lot, and made a lot of changes. But that doesn't stop him from being proud and stubborn. I hope this ending has helped to dull your pain, get well soon!


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